France 07/17 – Parc Saint Paul + Parc Asterix by Mega-Lite

This was the trip that started mine and Heartline’s tradition of taking the tunnel to Europe every summer. It’s an amazing feeling to get out to Europe without all the faff that flying presents, not to mention it’s great fun to fly down the European motorways in your own car.

Day 1

An extremely early start sent us flying towards the tunnel at half 4 in the morning and thanks to being the only car on the road we were on the train in no time.

We were slightly worried that the process was going to be complicated but it’s actually really easy and once you’ve done it a couple of times it’s second nature.

Parc Saint Paul

After almost removing the exhaust on my 4 month old car by means of the car park being made of boulders, we walked round to the entrance of Parc Saint Paul.

It was right now that I fell in love with this insanely wacky park, the first reason being the security guards are 7 and a half foot tall local celebrities and the second is just how perfectly ghetto the place looks.

Wild Train – My first ever PAX coaster and it was beautiful. From how ghetto and garish it looks to how insanely messed up it rides, it’s a work of art. Crazy unpredictable airtime, violent laterals and transitions that shouldn’t exist, Wild Train has it all!

Formule 1 – My second ever PAX coaster and it was also beautiful. Take all the positives of Wild Train, then add a serious risk of the whole thing collapsing, oh and real tigers pacing in cages by the brake run and you have Formule 1. Parc Saint Paul is one of a kind.

Yeah the park has other much less exciting coasters I could mention but I’d only be wasting your time, you’ll just have to return to the park in my 2018 report where they added the amazing Wood Express.

Incase you couldn’t tell I really like Parc Saint Paul, 2 really unique messed up coasters and a charming ghetto atmosphere combine to give the park so much character that just hearing the name makes me smile.

We grabbed some frites and then launched back onto the road to Parc Asterix.

Parc Asterix

I’d heard alot of stories both good and bad about this famous French park, so I wasn’t sure how to feel going in, so let’s find out.

We purchased the one go on everything fast track in advance with our tickets and this paid off because the park was quite busy.

Vol D’Icare – Rare Zierer Hornet model, it was fine.

Tonnerre de Zeus – Zeus was such a disappointment… I was expecting this massive CCI woodie to be really good and sadly it wasn’t. Almost no air time, almost no forces, almost all corners. Now using the Megafobia logic we may have just caught Zeus on a really bad day and it has the ability to be amazing sometimes but as I can only judge what I was subjected to, for now it’s a let down.

Goudurix – I’d read online that this Vekoma monster was one of the roughest coasters in World, it wasn’t, but it also wasn’t very good.

Pegase Express – The park’s brand new Gertslauer family coaster is just so much fun, the World needs more of these things.

OzIris – This was at the time of riding my first ever majorly disappointing B&M and it’s even more a shame when it’s an Invert which are one of the most consistant models out there for quality.

OzIris is almost forceless, rides badly and the layout doesn’t flow well, me and Heartline both sat in silence on the brake run, neither of us wanting to admit we’d just ridden a weak B&M Invert.

Trace Du Hourra – Possibly the worst Mack Bobsled coaster?

Menhir Express – The park’s log flume was really good and we needed it because today was very hot.

Le Defi De Cesar – Madhouse attraction that was really well done.

While the line up of the park was certainly well below what I was expecting it to be, the park itself is very well themed in places and I’m sure if it wasn’t so hot and busy it would be a nice place to explore. Operations were very good and the staff all seemed to be trying their best to reduce queue times. The pizza restaurant we visited was really nice and alot cheaper than we were expecting.

I think I can understand the appeal of the park to some people but I’m going to have to wait for a major new coaster before thinking of returning to the park.

That evening we positively flew to the hotel because we had to get there before night fall because I couldn’t work out how to fit the light reflectors to my car.

Thanks for reading, click here for day 2, Bellewaerde and Plopsa De Panne.