In August, we took a family holiday to Whitby, in North Yorkshire. Being theme park junkies, we soon noticed the leaflets for a theme park in Kirby called Flamingo Land. I had never heard of it before, but the leaflet made the place look really worth visiting, and it seemed a decent sized theme park, so we decided to give it a go.


It wasn't too hard to find the park, which was approximately a 45 minute drive from where we were staying in Whitby. Most of the route was a direct road, the A170, which was a really pleasant drive with fantastic scenery and villages on the way.


When we got to the park, there was ample free parking for many cars. We went in the summer holidays, so it was probably one of their busiest days, but there were still enough car park spaces for everyone. The entry prices are as follows:

Adults and Children over 4: £25
Children 3 and under: Free
Senior citizens, Disabled and Carers: £12.50
Family Ticket for 4 family members: £90

This worked out quite expensive for us, as there are 5 of us, plus a mother in law(!), so I was hoping I was going to get value for money. Once you have paid, all rides are free.


My first impressions of the park were a bit unimpressive. They certainly could have done more with the hub area that you first come to when you enter the park. It was an uninspiring expanse of concrete, with a big chair ride in the centre and a cafe and toilets at the back. It looked a bit boring, and I was worried that the park was not going to live up to my expectations.


The park boasted some fantastic roller coasters, and this was certainly true. The main attraction is The Kumali, which is a looping suspended coaster. It has 4 inversions and a maximum speed of 56 miles per hour. The ride is also fitted with a video camera, which gives riders the option to buy a video of their ride experience. I thought this was a really good isea. I really wanted to go on Kumali, but the queue was about 1 hour, and as I had kids in tow I didn't really think it was fair on them for me to dump them on dad for an hour while I went on the coaster. There was another fantastic coaster called Velocity, which was a bike launch coaster. The riders sit on motorbike shaped seats, before being launched at high speed round a track. Again, the queue was huge, so I could only watch (boo hoo), and my daughter, who loves coasters was too small to ride, as the height restriction was 1.37M.


All this said, there were plenty of rides with small queues that we did go on, and we found them thoroughly enjoyable. The turning point in the trip was when we caught the chairlift to the other side of the park. it was only at that point that it dawned on us how big the park actually was. It was VAST! I must say, the rides on the far side of the park were much better than the ones when you go in, and the atmosphere was better there too, with lots going on, in constrast to the bland entrance point.


Different areas in the park had different themes, such as Seaside adventure, Metropolis, Splosh!, Muddy duck farm and the Lost Kingdom. Each area had appropriate rides to fit in with the theme. I enjoyed the Spongebob 4D cinema and the wild mouse coaster. There were plenty of rides for all ages and tastes. One ride we should have avoided was the Splash Battle, which was a VERY wet ride. The kids came off the ride looking like they had had a bucket of water thrown on them. They stood in the big dryer, but it really didn't help, and it was a cloudy day!


There were quite a few eating areas, including a large indoor area with a soft play area. Food was relatively cheap and the usual fare, though it wasn't great. I'm talking lukewarm sausage rolls!


Midway through the afternoon, the sky went black and it poured down! We headed for the visitor centre in the zoo, which was the nearest dry point for us! The staff were fantastic at entertaining the children, getting the snakes out of the tanks for them to stroke and touch.In fact, I would give all the staff at the park full marks for being friendly and proffessional.


The park was so vast that we did not have time to go on everything before it closed, as there were just so many rides. We all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and the park did end up exceeding my expectations. I would definitely go again, though would perhaps try going on a less busy day, so I could finally get to ride that coaster!!!