Reach for the skies on the towering inverted twist of royal celebrations...
Reach for the skies on the towering inverted twist of royal celebrations...
| Theme Park | Fantasy Island |
|---|---|
| Type | Rollercoaster |
| Audience | Thrillseekers |
| Opened | 25 May 2002 |
| Manufacturer | Vekoma |
| Model | Suspended Looping Coaster (SLC) |
| Height | 167 ft |
| Length | 2923 ft |
| Inversions | 5 |
| Max Speed | 62 mph |
| Drop | 141 ft |
| Trains | 1 |
| Capacity | 350 riders per hour |
| Cost | £28 million |
| Duration | 2¾ minutes |
Odyssey
Towering over the market stalls below, together with it's sister rollercoaster Millennium, Odyssey dominates the skyline over Fantasy Island.
The rollercoaster is a giant inverted coaster. Standing at 51 metres tall, it is the largest Vekoma SLC ever constructed and features a custom track layout with five inversions. It reportedly cost £28million to build, making it by far the most expensive rollercoaster ever built in the United Kingdom.
Sadly, for all the height records and the cost, it is still an SLC and inherits all the usual roughness and head-banging of the standard sized Vekoma torture machines. In fact, the larger size has just magnified the well known problems and it feels like riders are thrown about even more than usual. Thankfully it is far from the worst SLC in terms of roughness, but it is still a coaster you wouldn't want to ride more than necessary.
The ride was opened in 2002 and was originally named "Jubilee Odyssey", in honour of Queen Elizabeth II's Golden Jubilee celebrations.
While it may be a terrible rollercoaster to ride, it does at least look very picturesque. For many years it sported a bright red track with white supports, but was repainted in 2016 and now features yellow track and grey supports.
Odyssey struggles in high winds, and does not operate if the wind speed is above 30mph to prevent the risk of the train stalling and not making it all the way around the track. Given its coastal location this can be quite a common problem so, if you really feel the need for a head-bashing ride on it, catch it as soon as you see it running!
Odyssey's twisted ball of track
Odyssey station
Station platform
Front seats
Odyssey's towering lift hill
Reaching the top of the lift
First drop
Vertical loop
38 metre high loop
Inversion
Upside down
Speed turn
Relieved riders hit the brake run
Returning to the station
Odyssey and Millennium
The rollercoaster can easily be seen from the back car park
Rolling over
167ft high lift hill
Corkscrew over Fantasy Island's market stalls
Odyssey in its original red and white colour scheme
The old track next to the market
Odyssey's original open station
