‘Rip off’ Grinch Christmas ride dubbed ‘new Wonka experience’ as families say it’s like ‘carting round Primark’

A GRINCH-themed Christmas ride has been dubbed a “rip off” and the “new Wonka experience” as families slam the attraction.

The minute-long ride, compared to “being carted around the Primark Grinch section”, features at Glasgow’s Winterfest Christmas market.

One mum, Elizabeth Hunter, 25, shared footage of the ride online after spending £10 to go on with her son.

She told how “the safety bar flailed wildly” and the track sounded like “heavy machinery” as it made its way around the course.

Elizabeth blasted an inflatable Grinch light taped to the ceiling, adding that it looked “eerily similar to a 6ft outdoor decoration found at Home Bargains for £25”.

Police were called to a Willy Wonka-inspired event after children were reduced to tears in February.

Punters who paid £35 for an “immersive experience” arrived at a near-empty warehouse.

And now fuming parents have compared Winterfest’s Christmas market to the damned experience.

Katy O’Brien wrote on TikTok: “The new winter Wonka experience. This ride should be shut down. It cost £10 for me and my son to go on. Disgrace.”

Others in the comments agreed, adding that it looks like “a 1990s ghost train has been recycled”.

Bosses hit back at the damning comments with a sign taped to the outside of the ride.

It read: “This is NOT a ghost train – this is a Christmas light ride.”

It also featured multiple warnings that phones should not be used while the ride is active, Elizabeth claimed.

After just 20 seconds in the Grinch’s head shaped cart, Elizabeth said they were already on the “upstairs level”.

There, they caught a split second look over the market.

She added: “We saw anyone unlucky enough to be waiting for their turn on the ride – before whizzing down a ramp and hitting a complete stop.”

Inside the ride featured “a solitary plastic figure stood in the corner, draped in green fur and donning a Grinch mask and Santa suit, arms outstretched in front of him”.

Elizabeth recalled warnings that this ride is “definitely not a ghost train”, however, she begged to differ after seeing “dark skulls decorating the walls”.

At one point, Elizabeth thought the ride had broken down as they stood at a stand still and the whirring sound intensified.

However, the ride turned a corner back into the daylight, and Elizabeth’s cart crashed into an empty one in front.

Then an automated voice told her to get out of the ride.

She said: “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!”

Winterfest organisers M&N Events Ltd said: ”The grinch train is an outside operator that gave us images of what the ride would look like from the outside and we allocated them a space for this year’s Wnterfest, we are delighted with how the attraction looks from the outside.

”Having said that we have been made aware of the video from the ride itself and peoples comments regarding the ride.

“We have went to the operator and asked them to make the inside of the ride better for customers to get a better experience of the Grinch train and they are working on it now.

”I will like to add that we haven’t had any complaints at the Winterfest regarding this ride it only seems like people want to complain on social media and the general feel that people are having fun whilst on the attraction.”

It comes after cops were called to an “embarrassing” house of illuminati Willy Wonka-inspired event in Glasgow, earlier this year.

Kids were given just a few jelly babies before it was all over in minutes.

Cops later attended the Glasgow venue as angry parents gathered outside.

One mum posted online: “We arrived yesterday at 10:30.

“Waited in a huge queue for about 40 minutes and then when we got inside there was more waiting around.

“Underwhelming was an understatement. I paid for Willy Wonka and got Billy Bonkers.

“Embarrassing doesn’t even cut it.”

Organisers House of Illuminati apologised and promised refunds after saying it had been “let down in many areas”.