Its always a pleasure at Great Yarmouth’s family theme park. We have become big fans of Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach over the last couple of years. The size and variety of rides rivals bigger theme parks but without the annoying queues.

Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach

The price is very reasonable starting at £15 per person for either a 3 or 4 hour slot depending on the time and date you go. Check here for opening times and sessions. It’s great value for money and depending on how you use your time it’s more than likely you can ride well over 10 attractions in the 3 hour slot. If you think just one ride at a normal fair costs you the best part of a fiver you could easily be looking at less than £1 per ride! Non-riders still have to pay full price though so maybe leave gran at nearby Wellington Pier to enjoy a cuppa and some slottie action.

We’re a big fan of the capped sessions as it provides time for the park to be checked and cleaned before the next session. Plus you can still do something else with your day before or after without feeling like you’ve missed out. The previous band system was pricey and encouraged long queues at the most popular rides. With the current system, queues are short and the longest wait (if any) is only about 5-10mins. The capped session condenses what would be a day of longer queing into 3-4 hours of ride after ride! However, make sure you get on all your favourite rides before the last 20 mins of the session as some queues are stopped before the end which can result in very upset children.

Food and Drink

There’s quite a few options inside Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach from chips and sausages to nachos and crepes. A portion of chips will cost you £2.50 which is again miles cheaper than typical theme park grub. We treated the kids to a huge choice of ice cream flavours at Leo’s Ice Cream Parlour who also serve waffles, crepes and cookies. There’s also a licenced bar and slushy stand. I was very tempted but due to Andy’s fear of spinning I rain-checked so I could reluctantly ride the spiny-rides with The Boy!

The Rides

As we’ve said, Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach has a great variety of rides for all levels of thrill-seakers. Our favourite has to be the famous wooden rollercoaster with manual brake. We think it’s now one of the last one of its kind in the world. What a job hey! “Excuse me sir what do you do for a living?”. “Well I ride a roller-coaster all day and work the brake…” Brilliant!

Wilba’s favourite is the horse-track ride Bonanza, closely followed by a new ride called Floaty Boaty. She stayed on for three times in a row. A lot of the rides have a minimum height around 1-1.1m with larger rides requiring 1.2m and a couple at 1.3m so it’s worth just checking before you decide to visit. Most of the bigger rides are suitable for heights of 1.2m.

One ride with a 1.3m height requirement is undoubtably The Boys favourite, The Lightning 360. It doesn’t detract from the day though as there’s more than enough to keep them both entertained. New for this year, along with Floaty Boaty is Pendulum.

Definitely not for the feint hearted with its 360 revolution high above the Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach skyline.

Hints & Tips

Make sure you check which gate you are arriving at on your ticket as they are quite spaced apart.

Leave the Log Flume until the end of the day if you haven’t got a change of clothes, especially on colder days. You will get soaked! Bring water with you to save time and just keep going… and if you like the ride and there’s no queue, why not ride it again and again!

And one last thing, Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach really steps it up later on in the year with themed nights and events so keep an eye on their latest news!

Make a day of it in Yarmouth with Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach. Hope to see you there!

Our tickets were gifted in return for this review. But as always, these words are my own!