‘I spent £5 on Grinch ride dubbed the new Wonka experience – here’s my verdict’
A new ‘Grinch Christmas Adventure’ ride has been slammed as a rip-off by customers who left feeling very underwhelmed.
The new ride is featured at Glasgow’s Winterfest Christmas market and lasts just one minute.
The ride has been dubbed the new Wonka experience, after the disastrous event which also took place in Glasgow earlier this year.
One customer, 25-year-old Elizabeth Hunter, spoke of her disappointment after paying to enjoy the ‘Christmas light ride.’
She said: ‘After paying my £5 entry fee – £1 for every ten seconds I spent on the ride – I hopped into a cart shaped like the Grinch‘s head and began my journey.
‘The cart thudded into motion, as the safety bar flailed wildly and the whirring and clunking sounds of heavy machinery filled the ride – perhaps some Christmas music might have been more fitting?
‘As the cart chugged along, I was greeted by two hanging jumpers and some socks with the Grinch‘s face on them, and an inflatable Grinch light taped to the ceiling – which looked eerily similar to a 6ft outdoor decoration found at Home Bargains for £25.
‘Within 20 seconds, the cart had reached the upstairs level which provides you with a split second look over the market – and anyone unlucky enough to be waiting for their turn on the ride – before whizzing down a ramp and hitting a complete stop.’
A note written on the glass of the rides ticket-booth read: ‘This is NOT a ghost train – this is a Christmas light ride.’
Elizabeth’s experience only continued to get worse.
She added: ‘Despite the warnings that this is definitely not a ghost train, a closer look at the ride will reveal glow in the dark skulls decorating the walls – artfully hidden by a size small elf costume hanging in front of it.
‘I briefly thought the ride had broken down, as I sat there for seconds as the whirring intensified to an uncomfortable degree – but the ride turned a corner back into the daylight, and my cart crashed into an empty one in front, before an automated voice told me to get out of the ride.
‘With that, I left the ride, less than a minute after climbing on board – £5 poorer and in slight disbelief at the audacity.
‘It seems the operators of the ride have taken a leaf out of the Grinch‘s book – and not just when it comes to their decorations!’
While not quite as bad as the Wonka experience of February 2024, the Grinch ride is certainly underwhelming.
At that event, named Willy’s Chocolate Experience, customers were charged £35 to attend a spark, bleak landscape punctuated by plastic models of mushrooms and gummy bears.
The experience’s flyer though, promised ‘encherining entertainment’ and a ‘paradise of sweet treats.’
There were actually no sweets, and children were left crying with disappointment.
The event, organised by House of Illuminati, rented out a space in Glasgow’s Box Park and decorated it in a way that some online compared to an ‘abandoned warehouse’.
Attendees were promised a ‘twilight tunnel’, ‘imagination lab’ and an area filled with candy and large decorations.
Instead, they were greeted with a purple ‘factory’ entrance, with cheap black curtains surrounding it to block off parts of the venue that were undecorated.
House of Illuminati, the company behind the event, offered ticket-buyers a refund because the £35 fair was so bad.
They handed out more than 800 refunds.
The event was ultimately cancelled, with organiser Billy Coull, 36, apologising to those who paid to attend.
Incidentally, Coull was placed on the sex offenders list earlier this month after pestering a woman with unwanted sexual messages and photos.
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