Europe 09/21 – Holiday Park, Klotten + Summary
Another factor in acquiring a Plopsa pass was to give us an excuse to revisit old mate GeForce (and his new +1) while in the vicinity. Finish on a high we figured, end the trip with a coaster of quality and class, not ‘just another cred run’. After a few weeks it does tend to feel like that.
Day 23 – Holiday Park
2016, Holiday Park, sitting in the cold in our first ever hire car, watching ‘the world’s greatest rollercoaster’ for signs of life that wouldn’t come. This view still brings back haunting memories.
Indoors first though, for the chain-wide favourite Zierer Force Two coaster, this named #1 Tabalugas Achterbahn, after the dragon who recently lost his boat ride to Schwaben Park. These things do generally look pretty nice.
And here we are again. It’s been so long since I was a true fan of Expedition GeForce that I was about to make a statement like ‘I was never the biggest fan of GeForce but…’, but that would be a lie. As a humble greenhorn this ride kicked my ass and I loved it, even going out of my way to visit it twice within the first year of riding it, spite not included.
Over the subsequent 5 years it has slipped a fair amount in my mind, mainly under the stress of endless newcomers. I always thought that the layout was suboptimal with all the lost potential through the middle section, though the epic airtime did make up for most of that.
Well now it’s slipped a fair amount in person. Weak, disappointing, a shell of its former self. Good to have the confirmation I guess. Gave it a few chances in various positions to be extra sure but it ended up just going through the motions.
Looks like this next place is still on the cards then, after being unceremoniously dropped last year.
Klotten
Always pictured the park in a field somewhere, so the views were a pleasant surprise.
Excitement at the entrance soon turned to disappointment as the first board we came to, after buying tickets, stated that the dark ride was closed. One of the two reasons for visiting.
Ugh.
Well at least #2 Heiße Fahrt is really good. Finishing in style on yet another Gerstlauer Bobsled. Every time I ride one of these I keep thinking it’s the best one yet.
And that could easily be true. It’s like a jumbo version of the standard layout with extra big twisty drops, extra high up turns and four, four! back to back airtime hills with more flair than GeForce.
Rode the dubious water coaster, Zum Rittersturz, as the drop looked rather violent and it was one other way to try and justify the entrance ticket. Turns out this one begins with a little dark ride section, a teaser perhaps of what the actual dark ride located in that same unique stack could have been like.
The drop was violent and rather unforgiving on the shoe, particularly in a mostly empty boat.
And so ends the adventure, nothing left but an uneventful trundle back to the tunnel.
I think I needed this visual for myself, just to put into perspective how stupid some of the routing ended up being, and here it is:
Summary
Total countries (principalities?) – 13
New coasters – 109
Total coasters – 128
New dark rides – 18
Total dark rides – 25
New parks – 41
Total parks – 50
New wacky worms – 14
Best coaster – Ride to Happiness
Best dark ride – Symbolica
Best park – Fantasiana (again)
Distance travelled ~7800 Miles-ish (more than double previous record)
Spites – 1/110 (0.91%)
Thanks for reading!