Thrills and Spills at Blackpool Pleasure Beach

During our week in Blackpool, naturally we had a day out at the Pleasure Beach where we smugly handed over our Tesco Rewards Vouchers in exchange for two all-day ride wristbands.

Both me and Andrew love funfairs, especially vintage ones so the first ride we hopped onto was the original Sir Hiram Maxim's Captive Flying Machines built in 1904 by the same inventor who created the portable, automatic machine gun. It's amazing the ride is still in operation today and still enjoyed by thousands every year. Top tip, when you leave the ride and end up in the gift shop below, look to your right and you'll see the original mechanism running the machine - if you hang around 5 minutes til the ride starts up again, you'll see it in operation.

 

 

 

We managed to get a preview ride on the new Wallace and Gromit Thrill-o-Matic. It's a family ride filled with scenes from all the stories dating back to 1989 (have Wallace and Gromit really been around that long!?). It was great fun to ride and there's a lot of detail in each scene depicted.

 

Wallace and Gromit were outside supposedly promoting it - this seemed to entail Gromit posing with lots of small people and Wallace alternating between dancing with teenagers and courting bemused grandmothers!
 

 

The entrance to the River Caves - opened in 1905 and the second oldest ride at the Pleasure Beach.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Laughing Man is incredibly hard to photograph, no matter what angle you try, there's always reflections in the way.  Apparently chuckling away since 1935, the urban legend is if the Laughing Man ever stops giggling, then the Pleasure Beach will close - let's hope he never does...