With Ireland otherwise bereft of any real amusement or theme park and having recently watched ‘Nerves of Steel’, we reckoned we were far overdue a visit to our only national theme park of any description, Emerald Park, just outside Ashbourne in Co. Meath.
We booked tickets online in advance for around 43 Euro, which came with a barcode redeemable – not that we realised that at the time – for a green wristband at the entrance.
First impressions were positive; there’s nothing I hate more than having to pay again for car parking, and it’s complimentary (for now), with plenty of parking stewards on-site during our visit to help shepherd cars to the nearest available space.
Pre-booked guests, like ourselves, were accommodated at a number of booths on the far right of the entrance (see below), and we were quickly admitted.
Learn from our mistakes – download the park map as soon as you can, as it isn’t especially circular and we spent the first hour meandering around the, enjoyable though it was, zoo; becoming farther and farther from the rides until we very unexpectedly arrived in a kids’ fairground area. Clearly not the place for three adults in their 30’s, so we moved quickly on.
In fact, there are actually a lot of wandering footpaths – and we found ourselves several times in either dead ends, or incredibly quiet areas of the park. Probably good to know you can find peaceful areas to relax or have a picnic, for those bringing one along.
Back at the main area at the entrance, and off to the right hand-side upon entering, and we started off with the Cu Chulainn roller coaster. In a sign of things to come, the queue time was around 30 – 40 minutes.
The roller coaster was great, very exciting, and much faster than it perhaps looked from the outside. Our on-ride pictures did justice to the level of thrill it provided.
Next up we wandered into the new area for 2024, Tir na nOg, heading first to Celtic Dreamer, a chair-o-plane type attraction that I found absolutely terrifying against all logic and rationale.
The Quest was next, a most unusual roller coaster that reverses back up out of the station, keeping you doing your very best to not just fall forward, until it releases you back out the other side of the station, through a winding course around the land, and up what felt like a near-vertical hill, before reversing back through the same course.
This was a really fun roller coaster, although the area in general needs a little more theming (or to be finished off, perhaps), especially with the queue as lengthy and slow-moving as they were.
Last up was the other brand-new roller coaster, Na Fianna Force, suspended from the tracks and securing guests with what I considered to be a far-too-flimsy (though it very much did its job, I’m pleased to report!) lap bar. This is undoubtedly the real star of the park, and we really enjoyed this – though as you can imagine, it had the queues to match. After a short, but sharp lift hill, we set off, winding, twisting and looping our way through the park – as I sat, as usual, in stoic silence hoping everything was as it should be!
On-ride photos were taken but sadly, had already cycled through to the next train, by the time we made it to the shop. This seems like a big missed opportunity for the park, as guests having a look in the new souvenir shop would need to move very quickly to have any hope of seeing their photos.
Viking Voyage was our last of the day – it was already getting close to 6pm, with the queue line being closed off at 6 – and it was surprisingly good fun, and longer than expected, with several major splashdowns and a most unexpected backwards section.
Overall, the zoo and the thrill rides were a lot of fun, although many of the other rides seemed very similar – some combination of being spun upside down and rotated. The 5D cinema was absolutely passable.
Would we go again? Well, in a totally off-peak school term time period, yes for sure, and I can 100% see why it’s as popular as it is – it was fun, the thrill rides are great, and while admittedly this is an odd thing to point out at a theme park, the food was consistently very good.
Having said all that, in terms of feedback (to the park, and as a note to anyone considering a visit) something we noticed throughout the day, that to be honest was pretty off-putting, was that the queue times for the main roller coaster (and water) attractions were consistently around 45 minutes so there's only so many rides you'll get to experience; two issues seemed to really be the cause.
For one, folks seemed to arrive at the loading points very unfamiliar with what to do, where to store belongings, and how they wanted to sit with which friends, etc. Viking Voyage was a tremendous example of this – despite being designed to constantly move through the station, boats seemed to be stopped more than they were moving.
Even when we did manage to board with a family of 6, we ended up very awkwardly in the middle row, as they all sat down, pulled the bars down, and then realised they weren’t happy with the seating arrangement. They even had the attendant unlock the bars again for them to re-arrange themselves. So, turnaround times in stations seemed to be pretty slow.
Secondly, there is no reserved entrance/’fast pass’ type system on the go, nor is there a single rider line – so no main opportunities to save time and for the park, increase load factor quickly without shouting for 1 or 2 riders down the queue. There is however a queue assist pass for those who are eligible – that seems to have been considered as an afterthought generally in the exit lanes to stations, and consequently seemed to make ride loaders jobs tricky balancing both queues and make both queues feel like they were moving.
So mixed visit, but overall great to finally see proper thrill rides in Ireland and hopefully it only grows and adds even more attractions (and maybe a fastpass/single rider line) from here onwards!
