I don't know about you guys, but as a theme park enthusiast I'm absolutely loving seeing more and more themed experiences seeping into everyday life. As a kid I was always enchanted with the likes of the talking animatronic tree in Mothercare or anything remotely theme-park like popping up in my local town centre. Escape rooms for me are the perfect blend of that: you get a fully themed experience but on a micro level and usually found in your local town centre. Last weekend, Conor and I were invited to check out Belfast's thrilling new escape rooms: Timescape Live Escape Games.

I've done a couple of escape rooms before over at Time Run, and I absolutely loved those experiences. I've been keen to try out a few more but always found it hard to make time, so we went out of our way on this visit to Belfast to make sure we experienced this one.

So, what's this first edition of Timescape all about? Let me set the scene for you:

It's 11.39PM on April 14th, 1912 and you're on the Captain's Bridge at the helm of the RMS Titanic. Suddenly, the words ring out: "ICEBERG, RIGHT AHEAD!" The placid sound of night is broken forever. You and your shipmates try desperately to avoid the iceberg but are unable. Now you have only 60 minutes to seal to water tight doors, radio for help, put on your lifejackets and get to the lifeboats. You must hurry but not panic as time runs out.


As a huge Titanic fan myself, I was sold on the theme alone! Belfast builds a large portion of its tourism sector on Titanic themed activities, and Timescape is a welcome and more fun addition to the other more museum-like line-up (hey, if it can be a blockbuster movie set around fictional characters looking sexy and wet whilst trying not to die, it can be a fun themed escape room, stop judging!)

As far as escape rooms go, I would say this one is definitely for the more experienced escape room types. Time Run's puzzles were a lot more at a 'beginner' level, slowly building up difficulty as the rooms developed. Timescape throws you straight in the deep end (pun intended) with a array of difficult puzzles to solve that really push you to think outside the box, but that ultimately lead to an entirely for satisfying feeling once you've cracked it.



Honestly, we had to call for help quite a few times during our sixty minutes on deck - we were pretty crap! I do find that you have to be in the right mindset for these things, and surrounded by like-minded people, so it took us a little while to get into the swing of things. But we had a hilariously brilliant time not having a bloody clue what we were supposed to be doing!

The theming of Timescape is fantastic. The details all around the room are really brilliant, truly immerse you into the story you're unravelling before you. Nothing feels cheap or half-arsed, you can tell a lot of thought has gone into the design of the thing whilst maintaining a high level of authenticity balanced with integrating the puzzles as seamlessly into the storyline as possible. Some of the clues feel so much part of the scenery that we didn't immediately realise that they were even something we were supposed to be looking at, again adding to the layers you have to peel back when playing the game.



Overall, we had such a fun time at Timescape. The team's first Titanic themed room is definitely a must-do attraction when visiting Belfast, and I can't wait to try out their Murder Mystery and Sci-Fi themed rooms opening later this season.

The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that earlier this month I finally took the plunge and uploaded my first ever vlog from Disneyland Paris! I realise this came a little out of the blue, so wanted to take some time today to explain the purpose of the channel and my hopes for what it will become and the part it will play in the little corner of the internet known as the Cupcakes & Coasters universe.

So firstly, thank you to everybody who has watched so far. I've absolutely loved reading your comments and hearing your feedback. Obviously I'm a newbie at this, but as with everything I do I am always going to strive for it to be the best it can be, and your suggestions and recommendations are a key pillar in helping to achieve this.

Topline - think of Cupcakes & Coasters on YouTube as the 'show' to the blog's 'tell'. During our first attempt at filming a blog back in Efteling over Christmas, Conor and I found that we were trying to spend too much of our time giving our thoughts to camera on the attractions we'd just experienced, as opposed to just enjoying the day itself. As vlogging is new to us, this made our day feel quite segmented and clunky, and we weren't able to fully immerse ourselves in the experiences we were having and taking it all in. I know there are plenty of awesome vloggers out there who are able to balance these two things, but for Conor and I this simply wasn't working.

So our new approach was to essentially use the vlog as an extension of my camera when I take photographs - I'm showing you (within reason) everything we're experiencing on the day. You'll like get little glimpses here and there as to what we think of what we're doing at the time, but ultimately the full reviews and opinions will be saved for the blog posts that follow and social media posts. The vlogs simply work as a nice piece of supporting content to show you guys as much of what we're doing as possible without it infringing on our enjoyment of the parks.

I'm also aiming to keep the vlogs short and sweet, but also looking good. Expect an average length of 10-15 minutes per video, including everything from 'cinematic' (as one comment put it) beauty shots of the park we're experiencing, montage style editing with music overlaid sprinkled with intermittent 'selfie-style' portions of me talking to the camera. But ideally those bits will be kept to a minimum!

What you shouldn't expect is hours of footage detailing every aspect of our day, lengthy on-the-spot reviews and reactions or more of my face than is acceptably bearable for the average human being.

 I expect the quality of these will improve as I get more practice at it, but basically these are just meant as a bit of fun and another way of glimpsing the parks we experience and 'coming along for the ride' as it were. Can't wait to show you the rest of what we have planned for this year, and as always thank you so much for your continued support and enthusiasm for what is at the point a hobby that's gotten severely out of hand!

In the meantime, I'd absolutely love it if you could subscribe to the channel and leave a like or a comment.

As an enthusiast, when people find out that I do this as a hobby, they often have loads of questions. Which I never really mind - I get it, it's weird, people are curious about weird stuff. I never mind talking about it or answering questions either, but there's always one that stumps me - just WHY do you love theme parks. Which is a great thinker...why the hell DO I love theme parks? I thought we'd take some time to explore that today!

As long as I can remember I've loved fantasy and escapism. I love animation, I'm a huge movie fan and I think my love for theme parks comes as an extension of that. It's really hard for me to pinpoint exactly why that is - there's something that makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside when I look at the incredible worlds people can create - the masterful world-building of Middle Earth in the Lord of the Rings, the fantastical characters of the NeverEnding Story to the intricate narratives of Harry Potter and the Grimm Brothers fairytales.

To me, I guess theme parks represent the physical manifestation of those worlds and the incredible storytellers who create them. I'm a sucker for the more whimsical style of theme parks found at the likes of Efteling and Phantasialand, but I'm equally as enthralled by the way parks manage to apply a thrilling storyline and narrative to even the wildest of rollercoasters. For me, my love of theme parks has never been about the hard stats and metal, it's all about the feeling visiting them creates from me and just how much magic can come from what was once just an idea.

Next, the collective side of the hobby. I'm a self-proclaimed cred whore and that doesn't just stop at coasters. I absolutely love the thrill of ticking off a new-for-me park from my endless bucket list of parks I want to visit. I've always been this way, even as a kid. There's something really satisfying about building a collection to me. I was always the kid who had to complete the game 100% or own every issue of the magazine series (shout to to Wally's World and Horrible Histories). I even got involved with completing my little brother's football sticker book at one point! I get such a buzz from just planning trips and seeing all the new parks and creds I'm going to tick off, and the sense of achievement when I finally get there and ride them.

I also love the element of adventure associated with parks. I'm a self-proclaimed townie - the idea of camping in a forest or hiking up a mountain makes me feel sick to my stomach, so I guess theme parking is my way of still experiencing the world and taking in all it has to offer without the gross naturey side. Trying to navigate public transport to the weirdest corners or the country to trying to communicate with confused looking theme park stuff that can't understand why you want to ride the kiddie cred, it just feels like a bit of a quest to me - I suppose that also feeds into my first point about fantasy too!

Finally, I think it's definitely fair to say I was raised this way. It's pretty much been ingrained into me to love theme parks from a very early age. We always visited theme parks as a family, from Chessington to Thorpe Park to Adventure Island to the big parks in Orlando. Theme parks have always been a huge part of my life and for me are associated with feelings of love and happiness because of the memories I created visiting them growing up. Sure, that's evolved now and I don't visit parks with my family quite as much as I used to, but I still get that same rush of joy introducing somebody I love to a new park that I'm sure my family got from taking us when we were young.

At the end of the day though, despite all of that that I've just gone through with you, whenever somebody asks me why I love theme parks I'll still give them the same answer: who the hell DOESN'T love theme parks? Never trust anybody who says they don't love theme parks, chances are they're not a good person. And I'll be getting that printed on a t-shirt, I've decided.

What makes you love theme parks? Is there one particular factor or loads of different reasons and piled together to form one geeky obsession? Have a chat with me in the comments, I'd love to hear from you!

Right, I'm determined to keep this to three parts - so let's crack on with the final chapter! Picking up where we left off in Part Two...

But not before, yep you guessed it, more cred-whoring! If I'm not mistaken I believe this is the year I finally managed to ride every coaster in the UK before more spiteful Big Apples popped up in obscure car parks across the country and ruined my perfect score. This included a trip to the South Coast where we literally begged the manager of Adventure Wonderland to let us in to ride, scouring Southport for any poor coaster that'd been recently dumped there and rounding things off with a ride on the newly refurbished Scenic Railway at the ever Instagrammable Dreamland Margate.

It took me a week to dye my hair that colour. True story.

We also took our cred-whoring international, with an epic trip through Germany, Belgium and Netherlands, including a return to my beloved Phantasialand, some absolute dives solely for the purpose of bumping up my count and my first visit to Movie Park Germany, which I absolutely fell in love with and has one of the best rapids I've ever ridden.

Sadly it's not actually possible to walk the loop David-Bowie-in-The-Labyrinth-style

Then before we knew it September was rolling around and we were jetting off for my first ever taste of Asia with on our Japan trip. I'd been pretty much obsessed with the Japan parks ever since reading a Theme Park Review trip report from one of their trips back in the early noughties. The place had everything I loved in theme parks - cute characters, inexplicable weirdness, amazing food and incredible coasters. Japan is a pretty stacked place when it comes to theme parks, and whilst I could easily have spent an entire month out there trying everything out, we had to squeeze everything into two weeks.

May have left one of the group trapped at the train station gates to run and get this photo...

The birth of the ironic peace sign that has now become staple. I hate myself.

We opted for a 'best of' tour - hitting up parks from Tokyo to Nagoya to Osaka. Being kawaii in Harajuku, getting an exhilarating view of Tokyo on Thunder Dolphin, taking in the breathtaking sights of Mt.Fuji at Fuji Q Highland, getting engaged at Tokyo Disneyland and walking around with our mouths permanently agape at the obscene Tokyo DisneySea, getting nostalgic on Jaws at Universal Studios Japan, ticking off our bucket lists on Vanish Coaster and ending our trip ascending the lifthill of Steel Dragon 2000 whilst fireworks lit up the sky behind us. The perfect end to a perfect trip - Japan really is like no other place I've ever visited. Yes the theme park industry has somewhat stagnated over there in recent year but it really is a place that has to be seen to be believed. There's just so much weird wonderfulness to take in and I'm already planning to return!
We ended 2015 with yet another visit to Germany, this time revisiting Europa Park for their Halloween Horror Nights and ticking off a few more of the Bavarian parks including LegoLand Germany, Skyline Park and also my first ever visit to Oktoberfest to ride Olympia Looping and Hollenblitz! I absolutely adore visiting these lesser known parks as I often find there's a lot of unsung awesomeness to be found.

No shame. Ever.

Doing the blogger thing.

I began 2016 as I usually begin my season - cred whoring in the UK! We actually paid quite a lot of attention to the UK this year, including multiple visits to Alton Towers, Thorpe Park and Chessington as well as some of the smaller parks towards the Welsh coast and taking in the impressive new Lost Kingdom land at Paultons Park. I love watching UK parks flourish and always make the effort to check in and see what's going on.

I don't think my hair will ever look this good again. This makes me sad.

Apparently only me, my brother and the lady in the back row know what you're meant to do here...

It was also Conor's first ever visit to Orlando when we visited in May. We did all the standard Orlando stuff you'd expect - which is incredible as you'd expect. There's nothing I love more than taking somebody I love to ride all of my Florida favourites for the very first time, and I had an absolute blast watching Conor's reaction to all of the awesomeness.

Late August we jetted over to fabulous Sweden to get reacquainted with the incredible Helix at Liseberg. Always a great time at this park but I couldn't help but think we should have left it a tiny bit longer after visiting just a couple of years previously in 2014, however it would have been rude not to pop in whilst we were visiting for the true reason of our trip - to ride Europe's first ever RMC in Wildfire at Kolmarden.

Unpictured - the rest of CF heckling me for posing for this photo

I bloody LOVED Kolmarden. Anybody who's a regular to my blog knows I'm a bit of an animal nutter and seeing the lush exhibits and the unique display of animals at this park was incredible. I was a little nervous to ride Wildfire. Since riding a buttload back in 2014 I still held the likes of Iron Rattler and Outlaw Run in very high regard, and it's always been a bit of a thing that a lot of the time European coasters just can't live up to their American counterparts. And sadly this was the case with Wildfire - it's not bad by ANY stretch of the imagination and the zero-g stall is obscene but it just left me feeling a bit meh as opposed to the others I'd ridden a few years previous.

2016 was the first year we'd had a hardcore Halloween itinerary too - we hit up all the usual Merlin events as well as finally ticking off some UK events I'd wanted to visit for ages including Dr. Fright's Halloween Nights and the outstanding Xtreme Scream Park. We also hit up that holy trio again in Efteling, Toverland and Phantasialand - and that meant one thing - TARON.

The best of the Phantasia dragons, obv.

Blood fountains and pumpkins. My happy place.

I know it's dramatic to say, but I really do think riding Taron changed my life. Not only will the memory of evening ERT on the thing with all my favourite people stay with me until the day I die, but I genuinely can't remember feeling anything quite as euphoric. It's just....everything. It's just so unbelievably good that I often find it hard to put into words how much I love this coaster. The music, the theming, the feeling of riding it, it's all just so wonderful. Total adoration.

We also finally visited the other Fright Nights - the one at Walibi Holland! I only actually went in a couple of scare attraction but that didn't matter. The event was easily the best Halloween event I'd ever visited. The entire park just oozes Halloween, the scare actors and costumes are world class and the scare zones are so good that you don't even have to pay the extra to do the walk throughs to get the most out of your visit. Bloody fantastic.

We rounded off the year magically with a visit to Disneyland Paris at Christmas - our first visit for this event since Conor's first Disney park back in 2013. It was incredibly nostalgic for us and we had a lovely relaxing time just taking in all of the magic!

Look how cute we are!

And with that, I feel that that brings us very much up to date. 2017 was the first year I wrote a blog post for every park I visited, so I urge you to check those out if you're feeling extra nosy!

Writing this has been such a humbling and enjoyable experience. I hate to gloat (lie, I love to gloat) but I really have lived the most fantastic life, and I don't intend to put the brakes on that as we dive into 2018. Bring. It. On. And if you have any questions about any of my park visits over the years, you know where to find me!

Smokers, ruining my epic Valhalla photo...

Right, strap yourselves in - it's time for Part Two. This is where things get really interesting! If you haven't already, I suggest checking out Part One first otherwise this part isn't going to make a ton of sense...

Smiling like we mean it at Disneyland

The trip was an epic three-weeker made up of two parts: we'd spend the first 10 days in Cali, taking in all the glamour (lol) of Hollywood and the parks in and around that area before jumping on another plan to Boston to meet up with a bunch of the CoasterForce lot to embark on the East Coast portion of our trip. That trip was absolutely life-changing - California especially. From walking through the gates of Six Flags Magic Mountain, a kind of coaster mecca, which was almost overwhelming to taking my best friend to his very first Disney park and watching him fall in love with the place just as much as I had. The best time of my life.

The East Coast was my coaster trip of dreams - 10 days of nothing but non-stop excellent coasters. You'd think after that long the effect would kind of wear off, but my go it really doesn't. Intamin airtime machines, old school classic ACE white woodies, more B&M hypers, rubbish SLCs and of course, my beloved SkyRush at Hersheypark. Never had I before experienced such mania on a coaster, such fear for my life and such a feeling that a ride was genuinely trying to kill me. And it was YELLOW for god's sake! It's still my number one to this day because I haven't ridden a coaster since that made me feel quite like that.

I think...AJ likes Ka yes?

Knoebels let us walk the tracks of Flying Turns. Still don't have the cred...

I ended 2012 with another 'theme park pilgrimage' as I like to see it - finally getting my ass to Europa Park! It was big, it was full of more rides than I could ever imagine! It was...a total let down to be totally honest with you. Not that it's bad in any way, quite the opposite, but going on what the coaster community had been going on about for all those years you'd be easily forgiven for believing that Europa Park is the theme park equivalent of the second coming of Christ. Which...it ain't. Still good though!

2013 was more Europe and UK. Headed to Scotland and swept up the parks there, including a ride on what is probably one of the worst coasters in the world in Tornado, a Pinfari made of nightmares which sparked the phrase 'tactical Nurofen' which is still an in joke in my friendship group to this day.

Fun fact, the control booth of this coaster set on fire shortly after we got the cred. True story.

It was also the year that saw me return to Scandinavia on yet another CF-Live, this time to gorgeous Finland! The memories I have of this meet up are mostly blurry due to the large amount of alcohol consumed throughout the short amount of time we were there, including probably the most hungover I've ever been at a theme park. I remember that headache so vividly.

That's me front right. I am extremely hung over.

Finland was wonderful - there was nothing incredible there really when we visited but it's always great to visit some bucket list parks and that happened for me with our visits to Sarkeniemmi and Linnanmaki, two parks I'd heard so much about in terms of how weird and wonderful they both were and they definitely did not disappoint. We also visited an indoor park which had a coaster-on-carpet, which I found absolutely hilarious and rode about 12 times, simply because I could.

Prior to this jaunt to Finland a small group of us finally got out act together and braved the parks of Russia, still one of the most unique and fantastic places I've ever been to - both for parks and for culture. The terror of climbing the spike on the utter monstrosity that is Pax's Cobra (they definitely nailed the one-rail design for RMC FYI), battled our way through the language barrier to exchange money for ride tokens and collectively be terrifed on the rocket ride at Wonder Island, notorious for leaving riders dangling in mid-air just years previously.

And of course, 2013 was the birth year of a little theme park blog called Cupcakes and Coasters! It was a little crude in its primitive state with photos taken on an old iPhone and graphics made in paint, but it got the point across and was the first small stepping stone into creating something I truly love. If you fancy a laugh and a cringe, I urge you to scroll back to some of my original posts that are still hosted here. They're...interesting to say the least!

2014 was an absolute game changer when it came to my coaster count. It's still my best year to date with loads of creds obtained. We kicked the year off in a chilly Spring visit to the Madrid parks, and for some reason I decided it would be a good idea to dye my hair orange. I wasn't impressed with Parque Warner Madrid, save for the pretty excellent Looney Tunes themed rapids, although it was my first experience of a B&M Batman clone outside of the US.

Goons in their natural habitat.

We also visited Parque de Atracionnes de Madrid on that trip, where my hatred of Maurer Sohne Skyloops was solidified when we were stuck upside down on Abismo for a gut-wrenching 13 seconds during an ERT session. Abysmal more like *ahem*. Stupid place.

Conor and I followed this up with a mini-trip over a Bank Holiday weekend to Belgium and the Netherlands hitting up Walibi Belgium, Bellewaerde, Duinrell and Drievliet where I nabbed my 500th cred! Drievliet is an absolute dive in a weird Dutch car park, Duinrell is absolutely stunning, set in a woodland holiday park, Walibi Belgium is...well it's a Walibi park...and Bellewaerde. OMG. Easily one of the most underrated theme parks in Europe, well-maintained, well themed with loads of really cool animal exhibits and fun rides. Fabulous.

Fat boy fail - abandon ship!

We spent Easter that year as we had every year for the past few - cred-whoring in the UK! This time it was a rainy visit to the Isle of Wight and finally visiting a Gullivers park after years of sulkily driving past their brown signs on the M1. They're...not very good, we broke their log flume by overloading the boat leaving Conor with no option but to abandon ship into the bushes.

And then it was time. The big one. The follow up to our giant 2012 trek across America, only this time there were more miles, bigger coasters and hotter chicken wings. Starting in Houston Texas we hit up the piers and boardwalks including the highly underrrated Boardwalk Bullet, stayed up way past our bedtime and almost had to pull into a motel due to sleep deprivation, rode our first RMC in New Texas Giant, got abused by waitresses at Dicks Last Resort restaurant, saw where Kennedy was assassinated, rode ANOTHER even better RMC in Iron Rattler, wondered where the fish were at Sea World San Antonio, cred ran and got the help out of Worlds of Fun, had dinner with some old friends in Missouri, ate IHOP in Branson, fell absolutely in love with and rode and EVEN BETTER RMC in Outlaw Run at Silver Dollar City, became kids again at St. Louis City Museum, discovered the country music scene in downtown Nashville, fell in love all over again at Dollywood, got abused by Christians at Six Flags Over Georgia and saw the whole trip off by meeting the Coca Cola Polar Bear at Coke World in Atlanta. And breathe. Absolutely trip of a lifetime, we were dead when our plane drew into the runway at Heathrow but I wouldn't change a second!

Silver Dollar City baby!

Our waitress at Dicks was a cunt and we loved it

But it wasn't over for 2014, oh no! No sooner had we landed in the UK we were jetting off again, this time for some more Scandi action with a Swedish double-whammy and my first taste of Liseberg and Grona Lund, with a visit to a lesser known park called Skara Sommarland for an example of true theme park weirdness on Tranan - an S&S contraption that must be ridden to be believed.

Bla Taget is an interesting Ghost Train to say the least

The finesse and high-class style of Liseberg contrasted with the wacky madness of the cramped Grona Lund makes for the perfect yin-yang coaster trip. I rode Helix, hoping it would be better than the disappointment that was bluefire - and it was! But not life changing by any means, sorry fanboys!

Come on 2014, is that all you've got? Well, no actually. For my birthday that year it was time to head back to Germany to revisit Heide Park for their new B&Ms and finally get my teeth stuck into Holiday Park and Tripsdrill. Tripsdrill was absolutely wonderful, we visited on a gorgeously sunny October day, the park was full of pumpkins and haybales and I was living my best Halloween life. Holiday Park...not so much. Sure, Expedition GeForce was fun, but after riding Superman back in 2012 it was nothing life-changing for me.

Spooky fun at Heide Park

But wait, there's more! We ended 2014 with a trip to PortAventura for their Chrismas event and for some more rides on the wonderful Shambhala. I'd ridden this back in 2012 (somehow I forgot to add that in - too many park trips to count!) Riding Shambhala at night during that visit surrounded by the people I love, experiencing that mega airtime over and over again in the cold winter night is a memory that will stay with me forever - the very definition of happiness.

Hands up, who likes B&M hypers?

Just looking back through my Coaster-Count list, apparently we visited Nigoland for the first time that year too? How the hell did we squeeze that in?! Oh well, apparently that was a thing - shows how much of an impression it made upon me. I actually really like that park too!

Surely...2015 couldn't top that epicness? Well, we had a little trick up our sleeves called Japan...

Bollocks...this is reeeaaallly long. If you're still there, I apologise, but also sorry not sorry because I'm clearly really enjoying writing this. I guess I'll split here again and resume with a final part three that I promise I'll try really hard to keep succinct.

This post was inspired by Zoe London. 2017 saw Cupcakes and Coasters really take off, and with it came a bunch of new faces to the blog, and I realised that a lot of the stuff I write assumes that you know more than me than you actually do. So, I thought today I'd do a kind of mini-autobiography of my 'theme park career', which will hopefully help give a little more context to some of the stuff I write and also help you get to know me a little better.

So where did this crazy hobby begin? I have been doing this a LONG TIME and I can't really put my finger on exactly when the enthusiasm fully kicked in, but my family have always really been into visiting parks. I don't have to dig very far back in our family photo chest to find pics of us at the likes of Thorpe Park and Chessington, and then on top of that we've visited Orlando every few years since 1994.

Me at Thorpe Park in 1994. Ain't I cute?

My parents especially are into their parks. Not as much as I am of course, but they travel a lot and will always make time for a park if there's a major one nearby. In fact, they like to troll me with it - they've been to parks I'm yet to tick off my list such as Ocean Park, Motiongate and Luna Park in Sydney. And they're not quick to let me forget it either, bastards!

I was pretty hardcore into RollerCoaster Tycoon 1 & 2 from the instant they came out, and I believe this is the spark that really ignited the enthusiast within me. I would spend hours drawing and designing my parks - first on paper which I would then translate into the came and watch my visions come to life! Compared with some of the RCT parks I've seen on the internet mine were total rubbish, but I was proud of them nonetheless and took it all very seriously.

This mad bunch of people is CoasterForce. You can see where I get it from.

And my love for this game is what lead me to the coaster fan forum CoasterForce - I believe I was googling for hints and tip on the game and Google fed me the RCT threads on CoasterForce. I signed up and from there I discovered a whole world of people passionate about theme parks - just like me!

And I also finally got to know more about parks outside of the UK and Orlando. I'd always known they existed, but this was the very first time I was seeing photos and footage of the parks from people who had actually been there. This also introduced me to RCDB, and thus my love of trip planning began. At this time I was still only 16 or 17, so not really in the position to go jet setting all over the world, but I would plan epic trips and file them away for 'one day'.

Yh, the huge hair was a thing for a while. Don't ask.

The start of 2008 I finally took the plunge and went to my first CoasterForce meet up - at Adventure Island, a park I had visited loads as a kid but hadn't been back to in years. It was fantastic experiencing a park, if only a small one, with people who were just as enthusiastic about this stuff as I was. Life-long friendships were born that day, and one of the guys I met on that cold and windy day in Southend was even a guest at my wedding last year.

From there it kind of spiralled, 2008 saw me travelling all over the UK and expanding my park portfolio outside of just Thorpe Park. I went back to Chessington for the first time in about ten years and finally got to experience the likes of Blackpool Pleasure Beach and Flamingoland. The creds were coming thick and fast, and I absolutely loved the buzz of watching my coaster count rack up the numbers, and soon enough I was grabbing my first milestone of 100 coaster credits on none other than Dragon Flyer at Camelot.

Thorpe Park, 2008

2009 was the year I first went abroad with CoasterForce and got some really 'unknown' parks under my belt in Germany and Denmark. What you have to remember is that the internet at this time ain't what it is today, so we pretty much headed to these parks not really knowing what to expect, which was incredible! The joys of experiencing theme park culture in different countries was mad, and I absolutely loved the WTF factor of it all. What do you mean you can toast bread on an open fire at theme parks in Denmark?!

Piraten has lots of H-airtime

By the end of 2009 I started University and went on a sight hiatus as I was bouncing between studying, partying, nursing a hangover, rinsing and repeating. But not before rounding off the year with my 200th coaster credit on Troy at the fabulous Toverland! Finally, my first taste of 'proper' wood outside of the UK and Gwazi at Busch Gardens. It was so different to anything else I'd ever ridden, and I loved it. I decided then and there that I needed to get my ass to the US for a real taste of what a wooden coaster could do!

2010 was a bit of a dead one for me. From what I can tell looking back through my 'files' (lol) I only gained 14 new creds that year, most of which I believe were obtained on a family trip to NYC which included a stop off at my first taste of Six Flags - Six Flags Great Adventure. As Stealth was one of my favourite coasters, I was absolutely gagging to ride Kingda Ka, but actually ended up falling more in love with El Toro, the gargantuan Intamin woody that commands the park's skyline. I think it's fair to say this was my first experience of proper, insane, sustained ejector airtime. I had never felt anything like it, and finally got what all those Americans on the forum were going on about! And then on the other side of the park was my first ever B&M hyper coaster, Nitro, and the other end of the airtime spectrum with the incredible floater airtime throughout pretty much the entire ride. Yes. That settled it. More American parks on the agenda ASAP.

Looking happy in Italy. BEFORE riding the Screaming Squirrel, of course.

2011 was a quiet one again. I headed off to Italy with CoasterForce to dabble a little more in the European coaster scene and to get some more of the bigger European parks on my coaster CV. Fell in love with Shock, the launched Maurer Sohne beast with the non-inverting loop over the lake. I think this was probably also the year I really got into 'cred-whoring'. Scouring through RCDB and coaster-count, it seemed pretty achievable to me to get all the of creds in the UK, so this year I made a concerted effort to start chipping them off, heading to the likes of Funland Hayling Island and mopping up the South Coast.

One of the best Flying Dutchman ORPs you'll see today.

And how could I forget, 2011 was the first time I venture to the holy trinity in Europe: Efteling, Phantasialand and Toverland! Sure, I'd already been to Toverland, but experiencing the park and all of its madness with a huge group of coaster nerds is an entirely different experience altogether. I fell in love with the whimsy and majesty of Efteling, getting lost in the fairytale forest and losing our minds over just how good the Flying Dutchman was. And then Phantasialand. Oh god Phantasialand. Granted the park was RAMMED during my first visit to this, my most favourite of parks, so it would take a few more visits for it to solidify its place as my number one - but good lord. I'll never forget my first ride on Mystery Castle where fear really got the better of me, or laughing so hard at how outrageous River Quest is and how it even exists as an attraction. God I love that park. We also went to Bobbejaanland, which is just...the worst.

My face when somebody asks me how I feel about Bobbejaanland

2012 is where it really gets interesting. We'd been planning it for ages, but my best friend and I had agreed that the day after I handed in my dissertation and thus completed my three years at University, we'd hop on the first plane out of London off on the trip of a lifetime 4 years in the making - we were heading stateside! Fast forward to June of that year and we were dragging our suitcases through Heathrow and boarding our plane to California.

I've just realised how long this is getting, but I'm actually really enjoying writing this so I will leave it there for now and post the rest later in the week.