Europe 08/21 – Piratland, Parc Spirou Provence + Amigoland

Day 8 (Still)

Our reward for pushing so hard yesterday was that today would be relatively easy going, with only 1 “proper” park on the cards before hitting just 1 Summer Funfair after 7pm.

Piratland

But first we needed to stop off at Piratland.

The “park” is a collection of childrens rides at the side of the road that’s free to enter and uses a token system. With that being said, “3 for the mine train please”.

Train de la Mine

This heavily cloned and tiny SBF Visa coaster kicked our asses with how brutally it was riding, I’m not going to lie, I quite enjoyed it.

After quite literally being blinded by a sand storm in the Piratland car park, it was time to get back on the road and head over to Parc Spirou.

Parc Spirou Provence

You know when you really want to dislike something, and have many valid reasons to, but you can’t because there’s 1 thing stopping you? That’s the Parc Spirou experience in a nutshell.

As we drove past the park and entered its large car park it became immediately obvious that we were about to be burnt to a crisp by the blazing sun, due to the park and car park itself having absolutely no shade whatsoever.

On the long walk from the car park to the park entrance our theory instantly came true, don’t worry though, there’s a shelter we can hide under just up ahead. Then it happened…

It was Parc Spirou’s time to write a chapter in the ever growing saga of the medical mask.

A security bloke slid out from behind a table to tell Heartline and his wife that they weren’t wearing masks. They were, that’s not up for debate, but we’d learnt by now that this meant you’re not wearing a mask that I like the look of.

It was much less insulting to be told outside of a park that your mask wouldn’t fly and it was nice to see for once the consistency in both Heartline and his wife’s identical masks being an identical issue. What wouldn’t fly and what wasn’t nice was that we’d now have to walk back to the car in the blazing sun to go get medical masks.

En avant Seccotine

Trying to cool down, both literally and figuratively, we first joined the queue for the park’s Zierer Force Zero, En avant Seccotine.

Wanted Dalton

Next we dodged the sun on route to Wanted Dalton, the park’s Zierer Force Two, only for the queueline to offer almost no protection when we got there. To add to our problems a heavily sunburnt local woman attempted to queue jump us and couldn’t see the issue when her family told her not to…

Spirou Racing

To complete the Zierer trifecta we took our unshaded place in line for Spirou Racing. If Heartline’s wife hadn’t been a genius and brought an umbrella for us to hide under I’m almost certain one of us would have ended the day in A&E.

For the record Force One at Schwaben Park is better. Why? Because it’s not at Parc Spirou.

With most of the coasters ticked off we decided it would be a good idea to check out the park’s dark ride offering next in an attempt to get out of the sun.

Gaffe à Gaston

So we joined the long but thankfully shaded queue of Gaffe à Gaston.

I’m happy to report that this simulator attraction was absolutely worth the wait and that I really enjoyed it. Literally nothing about this ride made any sense in the greatest way possible and its ending had me crying with laughter.

Have we just found a ride at Parc Spirou that’s worth riding?

The queue for Gaston had massively eaten into our time at the park and soon the rides were going to close, so we’d need to get tactical and fruity in order to ride everything we needed.

Nid des Marsupilamis

Sadly we’d have to waste time riding the park’s Roller Ball…

I didn’t enjoy the one at Schwaben Park, would adding 9.5 metres help? Nope.

These coasters are the very definition of pointless as they slowly rock you back and forth as you slowly descend the structure.

Supergroom et les Dinozorgs

Supergroom et les Dinozorgs was next and while it was far from the best example of one, I always enjoy immersive tunnel attactions.

Zombillénium Tower

We saved the best for last though in the form of Zombillénium Tower. This 300 foot tall gyro drop tower with tilting seats was fantastic and easily the best ride at the park.

With that we had just managed to ride everything we wanted before park close.

As we walked away from Zombillénium Tower, Heartline’s wife realised that her phone was missing. We quickly walked over to a patch of dry grass and poured the contents of our overflowing bag onto it, she was right.

The last time she remembered having the phone was while we rode Supergroom et les Dinozorgs, so we ran over there to discover that the attraction had closed and all staff had left the area.

Worried now, we headed to guest services to see if they could help. Here, we met a super nice bloke who first told us to once again attempt to catch a staff member from the ride, so we went back over.

This time there was a lady walking away from the ride, so we asked her had they found a phone during their close down checks, she told us that they hadn’t.

So we went back to guest services to file a lost item report with the previously mentioned super nice bloke. He really helped to calm the situation down, first by promising it will be found and then by trying to find comedy in the situation.

Just as we were coming to the end of the report a lady came in with a big smile on her face, they had found the phone! The sheer relief and happiness of this moment, combined with how great the bloke was, is why I can’t officially dislike Parc Spirou. I think once again I’ll need to adapt Heartline’s review of Futuroscope in order to describe our time at Parc Spirou, it was alright but it wasn’t without its issues.

Buzzing with excitement and relief, we started a horn battle in the car park before ordering a pizza and leaving.

Amigoland

After eating well, possibly too well, we next headed to yet another Summer Funfair and the last park of the day, Amigoland.

La Pomme

Where we immediately picked up where we left off last night, with another Wacky Worm.

Jumbo Jet

Before moving onto something much more exciting, one of only 2 operating Schwarzkopf Jumbo Jets in the World.

While no where near as bone crushingly intense as Jet Star earlier in the trip, Jumbo Jet was amazing.

There’s just something about these old Schwarzkopfs that make me smile. They just have this sense of danger and sentience that most coasters (for better or worse) lack. You just jump into your ghetto seat and become one with the rider infront, you feel the heat of the lift motors burning your legs and then you’re thrown around a track made up of nothing but high speed forceful corners. It’s not often you get to experience something like this and it really did feel special.

And that’s where our slightly more relaxed day ended.

Thank you for reading, click here for day 9 of my trip report, where we visit the awful Magic Park Land, OK Corral, Funny Land and Magic World.