Today saw us jumping over the border from Germany in order to attempt the Dutch triple, which is totally something I haven’t invented just now because it makes me laugh…
Duinrell
We started with a park that we’d been putting off since 2016, Duinrell, AKA, the frog park.
There he is, and what a pretty park he calls home.
The reason we’d put off visiting for so long was the park’s coaster line up consists of only clone attractions. I won’t rant about clones here because it upsets people, I’ll just leave it with the statement that when time is tight I’m much less likely to visit a park that’s full of coasters I have already ridden or can ride elsewhere as opposed to trying something new.
With that being said Duinrell’s coaster line up isn’t bad and thankfully all 3 of them are well presented.
Kikkerachtbaan
Starting with the frog coaster, a Zierer Tivoli Large with the aforementioned frog leading the way.
Also carrying the exact same paint scheme was the final coaster of the park, the much less fantastic Gerstlauer Eurofighter, Falcon. At least it looks great.
With that we were done and we had managed to complete the park so quickly that with seconds to spare we didn’t need to pay for parking.
What a lovely, relaxing and friendly visit that had been, which made our visit to Hellendoorn seem 10 times worse than it already was, and it was already disgusting.
Avonturenpark Hellendoorn
Full disclosure, after emailing the park with the issues you’ll soon hear about, they have apologised, promised it will never happen again and sorted us out for a return visit in the future.
Was it bad? It was bad.
As first everything seemed fine, we parked up, walked to the admissions area and were let in by a friendly member of staff. Almost as soon as we stepped foot in the park though it became apparent that the park was full of school trips. Not the teens that ruined my last trip to Walibi Holland, but young children, hundreds of them, can’t be that bad can it? Oh, it was…
Donderstenen
The first test of endurance was the queue for Donderstenen, the park’s Zierer Force Two.
It was here that it became clear that this visit was going to be horrible as we queued surrounded by a sea of school children who were screaming, shouting, pushing and queue jumping non stop.
It appeared that the children had 1 member of school staff per every 100 of them. It also appeared that these school staff members didn’t care at all in trying to control the awful behaviour of the children.
It once again appeared that the park both didn’t have the staff to deal with all the children and that the ones that they did have didn’t care about controlling them either.
Therefore it fell to paying visitors to try their best to control the situation in order to rescue their day out at the park. This duty fell to a wonderful man we named “Dutch Jesus” in the queue for Donderstenen, who repeatedly stopped queue jumping, while the school and park staff actively ignored it.
Can’t get much worse than that right? You’d be wrong…
At Rioolrat, the park’s mostly enclosed Vekoma Junior Coaster, the situation changed from potentially dangerous to actually dangerous.
The entire outdoor awful switchback queue for Rioolrat had poorly constructed (literally driftwood covered in chewing gum) Covid barriers between every row of people. Cue 40 solid minutes of hundreds of school kids violently shaking and trying to push these barriers over onto people.
People in the queue were actively afraid that these barriers were going to fall and injure them, which led to paying visitors having to once again intervene, this time a man we named “The Tall Man”.
Did the park try to stop it? No.
Did the school staff try? No, they were playing on their phones…
How was the coaster? Better than the queueline…
With that we were completely done with the park, our plan was get the final coaster and leave this hell, but the park had other ideas. The park’s Vekoma looper, Balagos, was closed, with no sign of any work being done to it…
Right, that’s it, let’s get out of here.
On the drive to the next park we all came to the conclusion that we’d just experienced one of the worst park visits of our lives and that whatever the outcome we needed to let the park know our disappointment.
I really hope the park keep to their word in their email response and that nothing like we experienced happens again to anyone else because that was awful.
De Waarbeek
It turned out though that all we needed to calm down and put our faith back in the Dutch park scene was a visit to the joint 2nd oldest park in the country, the brilliant Waarbeek.
At first the ride station was chained off with no members of staff in sight, but soon, after being alerted by another visitor, a friendly member of staff came over and opened the ride for us with a smile.
She gave us a little speech about how important and special this coaster was, and then we were off, quite literally riding a piece of history, and it rode well.
No seriously, despite being 91 years old, Rodelbaan was awesome and I couldn’t shut off the part of my brain that kept saying “this is special man, savour it.”
After a few laps of roller coaster history, we made our way over to Goldmine Express, which is a travelling coaster that the park were borrowing for the 2021 season.
All I can ask now is what happened at Hellendoorn? Two peaceful, beautiful, friendly parks either side of an absolute car wreck of a park, it doesn’t make much sense to me. Regardless De Waarbeek was great and it’s a must visit park for any true coaster fans.
Thank you for reading, please click here for day 19 of my trip report, where I ride the newly crowned second greatest coaster on Earth, The Ride to Happiness, and unbelievably become a fan of Plopsaland De Panne.
Much like Energylandia, we’d find ourselves returning to Phantasialand just over a year since our last visit in order to ride a new large-scale Vekoma. Unlike Energylandia, I wasn’t really all that excited to ride said new Vekoma or to return at all really, after having gotten a much better than usual trip to the park the year before.
Phantasialand
But alas, back to Brühl.
This time, for the first time, we were directed to park in the car park behind Mystery Castle, which is thankfully one of the decent car parks.
You’ve missed it, I’ve missed it, but medical masks are back and shockingly Phantasialand are one of the best parks in how they handle it.
There was a repeating announcement in the car park and at the park entrance that warned that medical masks must be worn in the park. This gave Heartline the warning he needed to put on one of the blue medical masks before leaving the car. I wasn’t sure if my mask, basically a medical mask in shape, not colour or fabric though, would be accepted, so I brought both masks in just in case.
After what I believe was actually the nicest greeting to the park we’ve ever recieved, it was time to F.L.Y..
F.L.Y.
In more comparisons with Energylandia, we must discuss the presentation of F.L.Y. and Rookburgh before we move onto how the coaster rides.
Quite honestly Rookburgh is one of the most stunning and highly detailed areas I have ever witnessed at a theme park. There’s so much to look at, I swear I barely took in half of the detail on my visit. There is also so much going on effects wise, with smoke, sound effects and animated theming either going off at random or being triggered by the arrival of F.L.Y..
Another thing I really like is how the coaster track perfectly blends in with the theming, which means you’ll never be able to memorize the layout.
If I had to nitpick though, I’d say it’s a shame that the intense theming doesn’t really carry all that much into the queue of F.L.Y..
Speaking of the queue, further praise must be given to the park for actually having a completely functional locker system. You can’t bring anything onto F.L.Y., so it’s good that this has been well thought out, unlike Arthur at Europa Park which descends into several thousand people battling for lockers for 15 minutes every time you ride.
On a technical level it’s something really special, the way the coaster is able to effortlessly switch between sitting and flying to start the ride is something I’d never get bored of experiencing. Also you can’t gloss over how cool the concept of a multi-launch flyer is. Finally the way the coaster interacts with the stunning theming of Rookburgh is incredible.
Then there’s my 2 major downfalls the coaster has, which stop it from being in any way near my favourite coasters in the World.
It’s uncomfortable.
I’m slightly shorter and slightly chunkier than the average bloke, not by much though, and to me F.L.Y. borders on being a painful experience. The vest part of the restraints cut deep into my shoulders throughout the entire flying experience and then I find myself faffing about trying to push myself off the vest, which takes away quite a bit of the fun of the ride.
It’s pretty boring as a roller coaster.
Take away the amazing theming interactions and F.L.Y. would suck. The coaster suffers from the new Vekoma issue of applying the exact same forces to your body for 90 percent of the experience. This coupled with the flying position (which hurts me) means it’s really hard to understand what is actually happening to you, other than I’m flying on my stomach (and it hurts), now I’m flying on my back (and it doesn’t). Compare this to the best flyer in the World, Flying Dinosaur, which offers a beautiful variation of forces, including weightlessness, followed by crushing positives and I hope you can see where I’m coming from.
In summary, F.L.Y. and Rookburgh feature some of the best theming in the World, the coaster itself though is not a World class ride.
On the second of our back to back rides on F.L.Y. to start the day, the lady at the entrance of the coaster politely asked me if I would change my mask for one of the blue medical masks. She didn’t expect me to do it right there but instead said I could change it while walking through the queue.
A warning at the park entrance, meaning I had the mask on me and a polite request from a staff member, this is how this sort of thing should be handled, stay tuned for the last day of our trip to see the exact opposite…
That’s enough F.L.Y. for now, let’s go check out the rest of the park.
Maus au Chocolat
Maus au Chocolat was first and remains one of my favourite interactive dark rides.
Black Mamba
Followed by Black Mamba, which wasn’t riding as well as it was the last time we visited but was still pretty awesome.
In constrast however, Taron, which is still the park’s best coaster, was riding the best it ever has.
The coaster was back to how I remembered it riding when I first experienced it and nothing like it had been riding in recent years. Airtime was back and it was great, I was being violently thrown out of my seat again and I loved it and the snappy changes in direction were actually snappy again. I don’t exactly know what was causing Taron to suddenly ride much better today but I hope it continues because the coaster has moved way up in my books, sadly not in my top 25 though because Hyperion is still better, sorry.
Next up, in true Phantasialand style, we were angrily shouted at in German by a staff member for accidentally entering Wuze Town when we weren’t supposed to while lost looking for where you’re meant to queue for Winjas now.
Winjas
It turns out the queue starts outside, opposite the long closed Hollywood Tour.
You still aren’t able to pick your fate on Winjas, thankfully though we got lucky and were able to ride on the Fear track. Winjas (Fear especially) are always fantastic fun and nothing has changed.
We visited Crazy Bats next, which is still running without the VR, meaning you get several minutes of pitch black riding around a warehouse, which is interesting… It felt good to have a ride though, surely this thing can’t have much long left at the park.
Colorado Adventure
Lastly, for fresh stuff today, we went to check to see if Colorado Adventure is still amazing. Sadly we were unable to get anywhere near the back of the train, where the magic happens, always next time I suppose.
Then it was time to get to know F.L.Y. some more before ending our day with a few awesome laps on the newly reborn Taron.
Phantasialand are famous for kicking you out of the park (and the toilet) as quickly as possible, today however, with barely 30 seconds before the Taron queue was due to close, a wonderful staff member ushered hundreds of people in before the deadline, what park are we at again?
2 trips in a row that I’ve really enjoyed, F.L.Y. for the most part is great, Black Mamba is always an underrated gem, Winjas are awesome and Taron is now kicking serious freakin’ ass. I hate to admit it guys but I might be slowly becoming a fan of the place.
Thank you for reading, click here for day 18 of my trip report, where we visit the decent Duinrell, the horrible Hellendoorn and the wonderful Waarbeek.
Thanks to last night’s shenanigans, we decided we’d make the most of our hotel until they kicked us out at check out. This meant sleeping until the last second, getting ready in record time, then meeting Heartline in his room for some intense last minute ticket purchasing.
Due to Efteling selling out (in more ways than one) the day we were visiting would need to change, as would Movie Park Germany, which for reasons unknown was no longer open on the day we planned to visit.
Laptop closed seconds before house keeping booted the door down, it was time to get back on the road, God help us all…
The revised plan for today was now just a visit to Erlebniswelt Seilbahnen Thale, which from this moment onwards shall be referred to as simply Thale.
This plan sounds a bit lame on paper but was actually both a really good idea and very enjoyable visit.
Erlebniswelt Seilbahnen Thale
The sat nav took us to a large car park surrounded on 2 sides by stunning mountains with at least 2 cable cars travelling up them. Where we went from here was completely guess work but eventually we found our way to the park.
I knew from reading the park’s website that the local area has ties to witchcraft but I wasn’t expecting the small park you walk past on your way to the park itself to have embraced the idea as much as it did.
Under the gaze of the witch (or decoy) you have a choice to make, turn left and down to enter the main park or turn right and up and head to the cable car station which takes you to the top of the mountain to ride the alpine coaster.
We opted to start at the bottom, mostly through lack of understanding the set up yet.
Unless my memory is spiting me again, all of the rides in the bottom main park are self operated, which for the record I enjoy massively.
This meant you had to purchase a “points card” from a little ticket office, which we eventually did after confusing every member of staff in the area and at one point being quoted a price that was almost 10 times the price it should have been.
Boderitt
Points card in hand, we first started with a ride over the Bode in a witches cauldron on Boderitt.
This wacky suspended Wiegand single rail coaster was good fun, made better by getting to operate it yourself, which was done by tapping your points card on a reader, pulling the lapbar down and then pressing a button when you get the green light, which of course I managed to do wrong, but I enjoyed it so it’s fine.
Next up Heartline and his wife went to ride Hexenbesen.
Hexenbesen, which I forgot to take a photo of, is an even more wacky suspended single rail Wiegand coaster where 1 rider at a time lays down, unrestrained, in a metal tube, that then goes flying around the course. You board the ride at the top of a flight of stairs, then exit before it goes back up to the start position at the end.
I was slightly too heavy for the posted max weight, so told myself before the trip that I wouldn’t attempt it. I did however see that many credit hunters (currently 241) had got a ride in and no doubt many of them had been cheeky with that restriction. I therefore told myself if the opportunity presented itself I was open to the idea.
Now was not the time though. Heartline and his wife accidentally ended up riding the coaster with a group of children infront and behind them, with parents given them disapproving looks, and they were below the listed weight limit, Heartline is rather tall though.
Butterfly
To cheer myself up I rode my first Butterfly. I won’t rant about how even after riding one they clearly aren’t a coaster, instead I’ll once again praise how much I enjoy self operated rides.
While Heartline and his wife were riding the Butterfly I noticed via the Coaster-Count app that 2 more credit hunters had added Hexenbesen to their count today, stop tempting me temptation.
In the end though, it proved too much.
While wandering around the park trying to find something to spend the last of our points on, Heartline noticed that Hexenbesen and the area around it were completely empty, so we launched.
Hexenbesen
We ran up the stairs, I slid into the tube, Heartline scanned the card, I pressed the button and there was no turning back.
Did the coaster collapse into a fireball? No. Was I arrested on the spot? Also no. Am I recommending you repeat my actions? Certainly not.
Hexenbesen was really good fun. Sliding about while laying on your stomach in a metal tube just feels so wrong it’s right.
No one had even noticed or cared that I rode Hexenbesen, but in my head I was now Germany’s most wanted, so we made a quick escape to the cable car station, so I could hide at the top of the mountain, oh and ride the alpine coaster.
How great it was to have clearly printed and displayed packages for the cable car and alpine coaster, I’m looking at you Andorra…
We lucked out and managed to get the glass bottomed cable car on the way up, which is apparently highly sought after.
After a leisurely walk through stunning scenery we stumbled on the alpine coaster, named Harzbob.
Harzbob
I really enjoyed Harzbob and it reminded me of a situation that was very simular to our last major Europe trip.
You start the trip by riding several large famous alpine coasters, think the little ones later in the trip are going to be fairly boring and tame, then they absolutely kick your ass.
This was certainly the case with Harzbob which was viciously throwing me around in the woodland, where I was half expecting the witch to appear at any minute.
Another leisurely walk took us back to the cable car station, the fresh air melting away the stress of the night previous.
We got another glass bottomed cable car on our descent, either we are extremely lucky or they aren’t that difficult to obtain.
As we walked back past the small park with the devil on the bench, there was an old lady chanting to the passers by, I think the witch has arrived, let’s get out of here before she finds out I rode Hexenbesen.
I really enjoyed my visit to Thale, it was the perfect relaxing way to recover after last night’s incident and we were now charged back up and ready to experience the final leg of intense days that the trip had to offer.
Thank you for reading, click here for day 17 of my trip report, where we visit Phantasialand to ride F.L.Y. and see if Taron needs to move further down my top 25.
A little over a year since our last (and first) visit, it was already time to head back to Energylandia to check out their brand new multi launch coaster Abyssus. This was fine by me because I really enjoyed my last visit to the park and couldn’t wait to get back on 2 of the greatest coasters in Europe, Zadra and Hyperion.
The day started as it always seems to with Energylandia, sitting in miles of traffic on approach to the park at a junction that was never designed to deal with the amount of traffic the park puts on it.
Finally though, only about 40 minutes late, we were riding one of the endless shuttles from Energylandia’s vast car park to the park entrance.
The park’s admissions area never fails to amaze me with just how quickly it churns through people. You arrive to a sea of bodies, think “oh God no”, then realise they have about 50 ticket offices open and you’ll only be waiting 5 minutes tops. I waited over an hour once for less than a 10th of the amount of people to be processed at Alton Towers, the Polish putting us to shame yet again.
“Busy but it’s not really an issue” is a great way to sum up the overall feeling at the park actually. The sheer amount of things to do, shows to watch and things to eat mean that even the most daunting looking crowds doesn’t mean you’ll be walking away with a terrible ride count, looking at you again Alton Towers, OK I’ll stop…
Abyssus
Knowing the park layout this time really helped us in hauling across the entire park in the direction of Abyssus without getting lost.
Let me just say before we get too critical that Abyssus and its theming (currently not even finished) look fantastic and that I love walking through the centre of the Batwing to the ride’s entrance. It’s also the first time I’ve been fond of Vekoma’s new track design, which in this instance, with that paint scheme, looks amazing. I’m also a huge fan of the train design, visually I mean, not practically, we will get to that.
Enough with the visuals though, let’s talk about the ride experience, this could be tricky… How can I string out “it’s good but not THAT good” into something interesting to read? I know, let’s see how this brand new Vekoma multi-launch coaster stacks up against the park’s current line up, multi-launch coasters in general and the new breed of Vekomas.
Let’s start by comparing it against the other new Vekomas that I’ve ridden, F.LY., Hals-über-Kopf, Lech Coaster & Formuła. Abyssus easily offers the best ride experience out of all of them. It is one of the most comfortable coasters I’ve ever ridden, unlike F.L.Y. and Lech Coaster. It has some great air time moments, unlike Lech Coaster. It’s forceful, unlike Hals-über-Kopf and Formuła. It’s very re-rideable unlike literally every other modern Vekoma. Yeah, Abyssus is pretty great when compared to its relatives.
Now let’s compare the new boy against the park’s other star attractions, this won’t end well… As I said earlier, Zadra and Hyperion are 2 of the best coasters in Europe, Abyssus certainly is not. It’s great, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not World class. Zadra and Hyperion offer 2 of the best first drops in the industry, Abyssus’ drop is trimmed. Zadra and Hyperion offer some of the most extreme air time in the industry, Abyssus offers decent air time moments, lessened by the vests. Speaking of, Zadra and Hyperion have 2 of the best train and restraint designs out there, Abyssus has vests. Zadra and Hyperion both feature at least one inversion that’s insane, Abyssus somehow manages to deliver the same forces no matter which inversion you are experiencing. Yeah, Abyssus doesn’t stack up well against the park’s other legends, it utterly destroys Formuła though, is it that much of a sin to be 3rd place against 2 of the best in Europe? I don’t think so.
Still my favourite RMC in the World, still in my top 10, Zadra is still every bit the monster that took my breath away last year, the only thing that has changed is I might appreciate it even more now. My only complaint is that it isn’t any longer, which it really could have been given the insane speed it hits the brakes at.
After a couple of laps of Zadra, we got a pizza from the shack opposite, which was just as good as I remembered, before making our way over to the park’s other icon.
Hyperion
Much like Zadra, this Intamin monster was every bit as incredible as I remembered it and it still sits proudly in my top 20. The first drop is still legendary, the positive Gs are still crushing, the air time is still ridiculous, the low to the ground quick changes in direction are still great fun, but most importantly Hyperion’s dive loop remains one of my favourite inversions ever.
We spent the next few hours bouncing back and forth between Zadra and Hyperion, loving every second of it and only stopping the carnage to check out the park’s dark ride we skipped last time.
Monster House
I wasn’t really sure what I was expecting, but this wasn’t it.
Monster House takes you a pointless, almost silent journey past static figures in the dark.
My experience was made even more strange by having half of Poland crashing into the back of my 2 seater car, taking away what was left of the atmosphere.
Right, back to the coasters.
More Hyperion, more Zadra, then ending the day with more rides on Abyssus, including getting the last train of the day and a night ride.
It was so nice getting to experience the park like this, having the time to get enough rides on Abyssus to form a valid opinion and getting countless rides on 2 of my favourite coasters in the World. To those reading who haven’t visited before, that care about counting creds, you seriously need 2 days at the park to truly enjoy it, 1 day for getting the creds and the other for re-riding the big 3.
Once again I was leaving Energylandia with a positive opinion of the place. The park is tied with Liseberg for having the best 1-2 punch in the World, the operations are (mostly) great, the staff are (mostly) friendly and there’s just an atmosphere the place gives off that makes me happy.
Apparently though us having such a great day out angered the spirits and everything that could go wrong after leaving the park did go wrong…
Firstly, the Tesco store we went out of our way to visit as we left the park was a few days off closing down forever, meaning the shelves resembled something out of a zombie movie, or the first week of Covid being a thing.
Then we went to a local Polish supermarket, saw a great deal on chocolate, didn’t get the great deal and left the building with no chocolate.
Enough distractions, we need get going, at present we aren’t going to reach our hotel several miles from the German border until 1am.
Then it happened, the one you’ve all been waiting for, the worst roads hating us incident of the trip and it’s good one…
We are cruising along the motorway, roads are looking quiet, I think we managed to even knock a couple of minutes off the arrival time.
Suddenly we see a police car parked on the hard shoulder with its lights on, what the hell does that mean?
Well apparently that means the motorway’s closed due to a crash lads…
Soon after seeing the World’s most useless police officier we hit the back of a massive standstill traffic jam, where we sat for almost 2 hours, drifting in and out of consciousness, not knowing how long it was going to be before we were moving again.
When we finally did get moving again it was a gruelling drive to the hotel, where of course things went wrong again.
Our hotel had a clone on the opposite side of the motorway, you can see where this is heading…
We entered the hotel, gave our names, then were told, with a laugh, that we were on the wrong side of the road.
Despite the hotel looking barely half full, being owned by the same company and it being 3am we were given no option but to rejoin the motorway, drive 5km in the wrong direction, only to drive 5km back, to get to our beds for the night, absolutely brutal.
Before we finally passed out for the night we knew we’d need to change tomorrow’s plan of getting up at 6am and cut the day’s activities back a bit if we wanted to actually experience the day as functioning human beings.
Thanks for reading, click here for day 16 of my trip report where we visit Erlebniswelt Seilbahnen Thale and I may or may not do something potentially regrettable.
Finally free from the grip of the stupid hotel, it was time to celebrate and add some new countries to our count on our way to Energylandia.
The plan was to visit Merlin’s Kinderwelt, the largest amusement park in the Czech Republic, then slide into Slovakia to ride an alpine coaster before we finally drove north into Poland. That was the plan at least…
Merlin’s Kinderwelt
Just over the Austria Czech border, in part of a large entertainment complex named Excalibur City, lives Merlin’s Kinderwelt. Despite the park being tiny, almost certainly designed for children and what feels like a bit of an afterthought next to a massive mall and casino, the park is currently the largest park in the whole country.
We had read a few rather unnerving trip reports on the run up to our visit, mostly concerning rides not being open and sometimes the entire park being closed.
With that in mind we were slightly nervous when we arrived to an almost completely empty car park, not knowing if the few cars that were there were for the park, the mall, the hotel or the casino.
The gate into the park was open though, so we entered cautiously, not knowing if we were breaking any laws or customs 10 minutes after we entered the country.
Inside, if I remember rightly, we were 1 of only 3 groups of people strolling around, with what appeared to be nothing open and no staff in sight.
After a while we spotted a member of staff who was also strolling around looking lost and after a series of hand signals and gyrations, he knew we wanted to ride the coaster and we knew where to purchase the tokens.
I have to say, I really like the token system at Merlin’s Kinderwelt. You purchase them from little vending machines, you get deals for purchasing certain amounts and the tokens themselves look pretty cool too.
Sliding Caterpillar
As soon as we came back with our tokens, our member of staff was waiting at the coaster for us and it was time to experience the Sliding Caterpillar.
This coaster, from manufacturer unknown, was kind of amazing.
Firstly, just look at it! It really is the perfect combination of both trying too much and not enough, with it’s over the top theming crumbling around it.
Then there’s the ride experience. We’d read trip reports that this powered coaster really struggled to not roll back with a fully laddened train, oh how it’s gotten much worse now though. With just us 3 on it we came so close to stalling on the first lap I was certain we weren’t getting the credit.
Just like that we were finished with Merlin’s Kinderwelt, in record time too, this becomes important later.
In the short time we were there the park and it’s staff were nothing but nice and I’m glad to have made the visit and ridden it’s unique coasters.
Now it was onto Slovakia and we needed to reach Fun Park Žiarce before it closed at 4pm, which is a stupid time to close but we will get to that.
Having got to Merlin’s Kinderwelt at opening, finished in 15 minutes, decided not to stop once on route, it should have been easy right? No…
The roads still hate us apparently, no matter where we went on this trip we had issues on the roads and today was no exception. The best the sat nav could tell us was we’d be arriving just after 4pm, so we decided to phone the “park” and tell them we were coming please could you wait for us?
That didn’t work, the bloke told us to come back another day, which wasn’t happening.
So we decided we’d rock up just after 4 and try our luck.
That didn’t work either…
Despite the fact it had only just past 4, the coaster had been fully shut down and covered for the night and the ticket office looked long closed…
So not only was the park stated to close at the stupid time of 4pm, they had gone out of their way to close even earlier, disgusting, I guess they just didn’t want our money…
It wasn’t only us that was affected either, no less than 5 cars full of people showed up and wanted to ride the coaster in the short time we were there. Nice job Fun Park Žiarce, literally throwing hundreds of Euros away just to go home early…
Don’t worry though, we can calm down on the drive to Poland, oh wait, that drive was terrible too…
Thankfully we were able to calm down when we reached our hotel for the night, which was the same hotel we stayed at the last time we visited Energylandia. The friendly lady at reception recognised us from the previous year and it was great to be back in such a nice hotel after 2 nights at the stupid hotel.
We spent the evening watching Fort Boyard and preparing our bodies for a return to Zadra and Hyperion in the morning.
Thanks for reading, click here for day 15 of my trip report where we visit Energylandia to ride Abyssus and reunite with some old friends.
After just about surviving the night, we were happy to escape our crappy hotel and get back on the road on route to…
Familypark
Familypark, and it was far from what I was expecting in several different ways.
Firstly, the park is massive, both in terms of foot print and number of attractions. Secondly, the park was far busier than both Fantasiana and Familienland combined. Lastly and most importantly, the park was incredibly well presented. All these things combine to make me wonder why I’ve never heard anything about this park before.
Götterblitz
After a much longer and far more interesting walk than we were expecting, we arrived at the first coaster of the day, Götterblitz.
Götterblitz would be my third time getting to experience a Mack Youngstar Coaster and it may have been my favourite one to date. Though I put this down to having reached a level of experience where I can truly appreciate how great Youngstar Coasters are for the entire family. That, or my inner Mack fanboy is now far less easy to drown out.
After a few laps of Götterblitz, no really, it is that good, we next attempted to head to the park’s only other real roller coaster.
It was now that we entered the, “oh my God this place is massive and actually really nice” portion of the day, as we got lost many times looking for Rattenmühle and ended up discovering interesting things on the way.
I’m so happy to say that Rattenmühle continues the trend I mentioned on the first day of this trip report. The trend that says this trip is full of great Gerstlauer Bobsled Coasters and each one is better than the last.
While maybe not quite as wacky as Speed Rockets (layout wise), Rattenmühle is a better overall package. It’s spread out layout is full of fast changes in direction that really throw you around, hidden surprises and nice pops of air time. The rat theme is amazing and executed to perfection and the coaster’s setting looks fantastic.
With both the coasters ridden, we took a slow walk back to the park entrance, looking for any other ride to experience on the way to make our visit extra worth it.
We ended up settling for the park’s brand new Zamperla NebulaZ flat ride named Stellarium. While very impressive from a visual perspective, the actual ride experience this thing offered was completely pointless in every way.
With that our time at Familypark had come to an end and it had been good fun, certainly much more than just a stop off between Fantasiana and Wiener Prater.
Böhmischer Prater
No, that distinction belongs to Böhmischer Prater.
In a small section of park land between 2 housing estates lives Vienna’s “other Prater”.
After far too much hassle trying to park, we finally made our way into the “park”, which could best be desribed as a collection of “are they open?” heritage rides placed either side of a straight path.
Shark Trip
Thankfully though, their star attraction, Shark Trip, was clearly open. So after paying a lady who was quite literally doing 3 jobs at once (operating Shark Trip, a flat ride and selling tokens for both), we took our seat on the shark and were treated to several fairly brutal laps.
Then it was time to leave the “other Prater” and make our way to the actual one.
Wiener Prater
I’d always really wanted to experience Wiener Prater but I’m not sure why.
It could be the sheer amount of coasters up for grabs, currently 13. It could be the mystery of the place, despite it being really well known, I knew very little of the place. It could be because I’m a sucker for a city park. It could be because I enjoy the funfair atmosphere I assume the place has. I wasn’t sure but I did know I couldn’t wait to get started.
So after finding a cheap and easy car park just outside, I wasn’t expecting that, it was time to enter the park and empty my wallet.
In case you didn’t know, Wiener Prater is free to enter, then you pay to experience each ride, as they are all owned and operated by different showmen. It’s a super costly way to do things, but in a strange way does add a level of character to the place.
Megablitz
The coaster that drew first blood was probably the best in the park, Megablitz.
This custom Vekoma MK-700 was so much fun. Crushing positives, a real sense of speed, wicked laterals and unnerving air time, all while you’re sitting in the massive roomy seat and the lap bar is nowhere your body.
If I didn’t have another 12 coasters to ride, I’d have loved to have taken up the ride again for a discount offer because Megablitz is that good.
This custom Gerstlauer spinner in the dark was far from anything special, but I did enjoy getting to experience the entire ride to myself.
Hochschaubahn
As a man who loves when brakeman woodies are done right, Hochschaubahn is not. No forces or fun at all to be found on this thing. You just sit there as it happens, while you’re thinking of anything else you could be doing.
I absolutely hated this disgusting thing and it’s going to take all the strength in my body to not start a profanity fuelled rant about how much it deserves to be destroyed in a fire.
I normally don’t mind Volares but this was a literal torture device. A torture device I paid 7 freaking Euros to experience. They should be paying me 7 Euros to ride it…
Feeling like I’d been thrown down 30 flights of stairs and in a mindset where I was ready to fight the next person who looked at me the wrong way, it was time to take a break from the credits and experience one of the park’s many dark rides.
This was a fantastic decision because Eisberg was amazing and managed to bring me back from the dark place the torture device took me.
Eisberg is an interactive dark ride, where you use a camera to “shoot” targets on your journey, “shoot” enough and amazing things happen. Full of animatronics, comedy, character and fun surprises, Eisberg is a must ride when you’re at Wiener Prater.
I’m kind of embarrassed, for many reasons, to admit that I like Insider, but I do.
Firstly there is the coaster’s insane, pitch black, laser and smoke filled, pumping techno music queueline, which was pretty amazing to experience on my own. Even better was the World’s most difficult mirror maze under the same circumstances. I’m not ashamed to admit I was lost for good few minutes here and that if some Austrain women hadn’t shown up I may still be there.
Then there’s the coaster. An off the shelf Maurer spinner. A layout that I’ve ridden and not enjoyed very much at Skara Sommarland. But in the darkness, not knowing where you’re going, with the music blaring and all the special effects going off it was a pretty fun experience.
Super 8er Bahn
Up next was another surprise hit.
I was expecting Super 8er Bahn, the World’s only Pinfari FC80 to ride awful and bring back all the pain from the Volare. Thankfully however it was almost worryingly smooth and provided a fast and forceful ride that I honestly enjoyed.
I got to ride Zug des Manitu, the park’s kiddy powered mine train coaster, on my own. Which would have been pretty embarrassing had the operator not been so friendly.
Despite occupying an area the same size as the previously mentioned Reverchon spinner, which is a travelling design, Gesengte Sau is the tallest, fastest and longest Gerstlauer Bobsled ever built. This creates a crazy twisted compact design that’s full of steep drops, fast changes in direction, air time, strong laterals, wacky transitions and a real sense of character. I really enjoyed Gesengte and just like Megablitz I’d have loved to have gotten another ride, if I wasn’t swiftly running out of money.
The final coaster of the day for me was Wilde Maus, an off the shelf Maurer mouse, one of the better examples of these that I’ve ridden.
We decided to treat ourselves with a proper meal tonight, after last night’s incident, so we went to our second ever Rollercoaster Restaurant, well third if you count not eating and leaving in disgust at the Europa Park one.
Once again I really enjoyed the experience and the food. Yes it’s pricey, but there aren’t many places where you can experience it. Plus I’m one of the fussiest eaters ever, so if I like the food then it’s always a win.
I hope one of the few others in the World can be the ultimate Rollercoaster Restaurant, because Prater’s one had one major thing missing from the Hamburg one (the ability to order from a touch screen) but then also had 2 major things that were better (robots putting the food onto the track and a better atmosphere with awesome lighting).
After a stroll around the park at night, it looked pretty stunning to be fair, we retrieved the car before driving back to last night’s stupid hotel, where nothing had changed. As we were walking in, key cards in hand, holding a couple of bags each, a member of staff who was leaving asked us if we were residents at the hotel, yes, sadly…
Heartline’s wife then asked if she could have another towel for the room, to which after much confusion the member of staff replied no. This has to be a set up, how can a hotel be this inept?
Thank you for reading, click here for day 14 of my trip report, where we visit Merlin’s Kinderwelt, before everything goes wrong in Slovakia.
After our painfully short sleep we woke up to discover that the location of the hotel was just as stunning as the hotel itself.
In fact, the Austrian scenery (this was my first time visiting) was beautiful the entire way from the hotel to the first park of the day.
Freizeitpark Familienland
Which was Freizeitpark Familienland, a small park that I’d discovered while planning another trip a few years ago and from that point I labelled it as the park with the Zierer ESC that’s surrounded by mountains. To be fair that’s an accurate description of the park but dig under the beautiful surface and you’ll discover that the park is almost unfairly so much more.
Ignoring a few key exceptions from France, I’d never felt truly welcomed by any of their admissions staff. So it was such a breath of fresh air to speak to the man at the entrance of Familienland. There was no hard faces, there were no harsh words, no demands for masks or covid passes, just a chilled out friendly bloke welcoming us on park and it felt great.
Big Bang
First up we headed to the park’s star attraction, the previously mentioned Zierer ESC surrounded by mountains, Big Bang.
They were experiencing some form of technical issue as we entered the queue, this led to one of the greatest introductions you could have to a coaster and a situation that couldn’t have been anymore Austrian.
There was a fault was a proximity sensor on the coaster’s brake run. From previously working at a park I was worried, these kinds of faults would normally take 3 – 4 hours to resolve. You’d have to wait for engineering, evacuate the coaster, station and queue lines, source the new sensor from the workshop, harness up, spend 30 – 45 minutes changing the part and then finally complete multiple test runs.
The ride op himself does the work, the guests in the station and queueline spectate in amazement, the new sensor is already under the station just in case, you scale the track harness free, you spend less than a minute changing sensors and then you test it once before reopening immediately. It really does make you wonder why the rest of the World can’t be trusted to do this..
You wouldn’t think so looking at the coaster’s rather epic station and entrance but Wicky is actually just a SBF Visa Twin Helix.
What did make it kind of special though was the friendly ride operator and the many other full grown adults having a blast while riding. There’s something in the air at this park I’m sure and I love it.
After a few more laps of Big Bang we sadly had to part ways with Freizeitpark Familienland. Thankfully I’m happy to say that it’s a park that I’ll never forget and I couldn’t think of a better introduction to Austria.
Apart from maybe…
Fantasiana
Oh, this was something really special.
Heartline had raved about this park so much and in so much detail that this visit really felt like a homecoming to me, even though I’d never been before. I knew the rides, I knew, loved and owned the park soundtracks and this all combined to make this incredible park even more wonderful.
Inside that awesome facade is an abc rides drop tower but describing this attraction as simply a drop tower would be selling it criminally short.
After entering the attraction you come face to face with a massive animatronic dragon in a room that’s full of sinister dread. Or at least it was to me, because I knew I was one door opening away from an abc drop tower.
Tower rides get under my skin at the best of times but abc towers in my opinion have the most intense drop out there, so naturally I was freaking out big time.
The door opened and the loading area kept the same level of theming and dread that the previous room had. The single lap bar that feels like it’s doing nothing came down and the ascent began.
You pass four heavily themed scenes on your way to the top and then it’s time to come back down and I’m pleased to say that Knights Ride Tower lives up to the abc claim of having the most intense drops out there.
I lost count of how many times I rode this amazing attraction but 3 things were constant on every ride. The level of theming always surprised me, the drop always scared me and I always loved every second of it.
Before we move onto the coaster itself though, I can’t not mention how great the brand new area the coaster lives in is. It looks fantastic and seeing this level of detail and attention from a relatively small park is so impressive.
Fridolin’sverrückter Zauberexpress is the first Family Launch Coaster from ART Engineering but better than that it’s actually multi launch. In fact the coaster is currently the only multi launch coaster in the World that children as small as 90cm can ride.
Despite being designed to be suitable for children of that size, Fridolin is far from boring, even to a jaded enthusiast like myself. The launches are fun, there are some nice forces here and there and the waterfall section is always worrying. Even if you can’t find any fun in the coaster itself though, I’d find it impossible for anyone to deny how well presented and adorable it is.
Wild Train is absolutely insane! We rode this amazing piece of engineering so many times but I never got used to the brutality of the airtime. Me and Heartline would bounce between laughing so hard it hurt and then screaming in fear every time we rode Wild Train and I can’t really think of a better way to explain why I love it so much.
This ghost train style dark ride takes you on a journey through some of Sindbad’s most harrowing adventures. I spent the entire ride freaking out which I think made the experience more fun for everyone involved.
There was something so magical about hearing the ride’s soundtrack in person for the first time, after I’d listened to it on a regular basis ever since Heartline’s first visit to the park.
Mami Wata isn’t a long ride, but I’m not complaining, I like how it gets straight to the point, unlike a lot of other flume rides. The theming is wonderful, both the drops are great fun (you will get wet!), the music is amazing and like other rides at Fantasiana it’s an instant classic.
For reasons of wanting to please the Dark Ride Database, wanting to dry off from Mami Wata and wanting to spend as long as we physically could at Fantasiana, we next checked out the 4D Cinema.
This ended up being a fantastic decision because the film they were showing was incredible. Think Efteling’s PandaDroom but much more slow paced and solemn, narrated by a super deep voiced German turtle and with an ending full of uncertainty. It was accidentally great in many ways and absolutely worth the time investment.
Oldtimerfahrt
For all the same reasons again we next rode the old timer car ride. I couldn’t tell you if it’s small indoor section elevates it to dark ride status but I can tell you that I enjoyed it.
Sadly all good things must come to an end. So after a ride on the Ferris Wheel, another couple of laps on Fridolin, many more laps on Wild Train and 2 more visits to the Knights Ride Tower, it was with a heavy heart that I had to say farewell to Fantasiana. But not before getting myself a copy of the Mami Wata soundtrack CD and a kick ass lenticular Knights Ride Tower postcard!
If it wasn’t too obvious I absolutely loved my visit to Fantasiana and I can’t wait to return.
Today had been amazing, Freizeitpark Familienland had been great and a breath of fresh air, Fantasiana had been one of my favourite park visits ever and my favourite K-Pop group (fromis_9) had just come back. All was well, until it wasn’t…
Tonight’s hotel, where do I start…
Gone were the mountain views of last night’s hotel, replaced with a literal scrap yard. Gone was the feeling of being the only ones in the hotel, replaced with being crammed wall to wall with undesirable characters staring us down at every opportunity. Gone was air con, replaced with a fan that turbo charged the hot air into your face. Gone was common courtesy, replaced with staff who just didn’t care. Gone was the ability to get boiling water at a hotel, replaced with having to eat cold tortillas and drink warm ‘yoghurt.’
Do you want to know the best bit? This hotel had a better rating on Booking.com than the stunning one from the night before. I can only assume bribes were accepted, I can’t wrap my head around any other reasoning.
Thank you for reading, if we survive the night then please click here for day 13 of my trip report, where we visit Familypark before I spend my life savings at Wiener and Böhmischer Prater.
Today marked the end of our, give or take, 10 days in France. Unfortunately though we wouldn’t be able to give the country the send off it had earned, thanks to there being very little to do, park wise, in the area. It was therefore decided that we’d spend the day sight seeing before visiting the final 3 Summer Funfairs when they opened later in the evening.
For the sight seeing we visited a gorge, which despite previous hesitations, I really did find myself enjoying.
In what felt like no time at all, it was time to leave the stunning scenery behind and begin the final Summer Funfair crawl of the trip.
Azur Park
First up was a “park” I won’t forget in a hurry, but mostly for the wrong reasons.
We arrived at Azur Park for opening and 2 things became immediately apparent, the coaster line up had changed (from my research) and almost nothing looked like it was ready to open…
So we decided to do a lap of the park.
In the area previously home to what I spent the entire trip calling the single rail Wild Mouse, was something even more exciting, Le King. King as far as I’m aware is royalty on the French touring scene and I was so excited that I was going to get to ride it, when they actually decide to open it that is.
Around 15 minutes after the park opened, several, mostly smaller rides, began to test.
Pomme
After another 10 minutes or so they opened the Wacky Worm. Much like Chenille from earlier in the trip, there was most certainly something wrong with this Worm, it was barely moving and almost stalled on each of our 3 laps.
And now we play the waiting game…
We spent the next 20 – 30 minutes bouncing between Le King and Le Crazy Mouse, watching them both not being open, until…
Crazy Mouse
Finally the spinner opened and my God were the operators not pleased to take our money and welcome us on board. Maybe they were just bitter because this was one of the weakest spinning mice that I’ve ridden.
Now all that was left to do was camp outside Le King.
After another frustating 15 minutes the operators appeared from out of nowhere and slowly began getting things ready.
Le King
As soon as the shutter to buy tickets opened we were there money in hand ready to finally take our seats and get this over with, but no…
After we purchased our tickets they let us onto the train, where they left us sitting for another 15 minutes…
Finally though, only an hour and half late, it was time to experience Le King.
How was it? I’m not sure.
I equal parts like and dislike this travelling monster.
On one hand, it’s a Soquet, it’s fast, it’s intense and it’s visually pretty cool. On the other, it’s brutally rough and the restraints are evil. I really think I need to re-ride it with a fresh mind and body to truly form a worth while opinion of it, but for now I’m just happy to be able to say that I’ve ridden Le King.
And the only operating Top Fun Typhoon in the World. I’d been intrigued about Magic Mountain from the moment I first saw a photo of its janky looking checkered inclined loop and it’s fair to say the coaster lived up to this assumption. It was rough, rattly and poorly transitioned but in the kind of way that’s more funny than offensive.
Tokaido Express is one of only 2 operating (3 exisiting) Mack Blauer Enzian Version 1s in the World and I thought it was great fun. This thing hauls way faster than modern versions of the layout and that coupled with no restraints and the ghetto seating position made for an exciting experience.
The final coaster of Lunapark Fréjus was Train Gourmand and we’d have to really put in effort if we wanted to ride it.
Do you remember the Wacky Worm from Parc d’Attractions Marseillan-Plage? The one that was a massive headache to ride but I promised that a funfair later in the trip tops it? Well this is it…
Instead of being able to buy jutons (tokens) to ride Train Gourmand at a cash box at the attraction, you had to purchase them elsewhere. Where was this elsewhere? Well after several laps of the bustling funfair, getting lost and accidently ending up in restricted areas, we finally found out, from the main cash desks at the entrance to the fair, in other words, nowhere near the coaster…
This still seems utterly pointless to me and I’ve no doubt many riders wouldn’t go to that effort and thus money would be lost, but what do I know…
Next up was Turtle’s Coaster, an EOS spinning coaster that rode 100 times better than the one at Gulliver’s Milton Keynes used to but was still terrible. It did look nice though.
It almost felt fitting to end our series of Summer Funfair runs on a Wacky Worm, I dread to think how many I’ve added to my count thanks to these fairs.
Almost 1am now, still haven’t eaten, 6 Croque McDos? Yes.
Tomorrow we’d be going on an epic roadtrip through various countries in order to reach Austria before it got too late.
Heartline had discovered there was a massive trackless dark ride themed to chocolate at the Swiss museum of transport. So, while eating our McDos we booked our slot to ride and then planned when we wanted to wake up. Not too early as it’s almost 1:30 now, but with more than enough time to make our time slot. Yes, that sounds good, we might even need to find something to do in Switzerland to kill time before our slot, if only we knew…
Day 11
We got a decent amount of sleep and then jumped in the car with a strong buffer period for any issues on the way.
First up we flew through Monaco, just to say we’d been. Despite what I’d been told about the place, this was the only “country” today that we didn’t face any hold ups in.
Then it was into Italy where far too much time was lost thanks to motorway traffic and endless roadworks.
Finally though we were able to escape the hold ups of Italy and enter Switzerland still with enough time to spare. Only for it to all be wasted to more motorway traffic and even more roadworks. At one point we were stationary for over half an hour on approach to a tunnel and this wouldn’t even be the worst tunnel related incident we’d witness today. See I told you the roads were out to get us and this is far from the worst example we saw on the trip, that’s coming, get excited.
The sat nav told us that we’d arrived 20 minutes after our booked slot, which was the last slot of the day. Knowing the museum stayed open for another couple of hours after this, we phoned to ask if they would honour our slot, but no, we’d need to pop in to get a refund or tickets to return…
We opted for the tickets to return and then decided we didn’t come all this way for nothing, so let’s do a spot of sight seeing in Lucerne.
Despite how I should feel given the circumstances, I cannot deny that’s one hell of a view.
Thanks to missing our time slot for the museum, then doing a couple of hours sight seeing, we were now way behind schudule on arriving in Austria at a sensible time. How bad can it be though? Checks sat nav. Yeah that’s not too bad, we should still be able to get a decent enough sleep tonight. Can you guess what happened next?
More roadworks, more traffic, more hold ups and the teased tunnel incident from earlier.
We were around an hour away from our hotel, still looking like we’d arrive at a semi sensible time, then it happened.
The 5th longest road tunnel in the World, the Gotthard Road Tunnel, was operating 1 lane only, due to, you guessed it, roadworks. We waited almost an hour for our turn to drive through this stupid hole in the mountains, turning our promised decent enough sleep into something stupid like 5 hours.
It was a shame really because the hotel was stunning, but never mind, I was still buzzing, the trip was about to enter phase 3, finally getting to visit parks that Heartline had visited and I was dying to see.
With that being said, thank you for reading, please click here for day 12 of my trip report where we visit the charming Freizeitpark Familienland and the wonderful Fantasiana.
Today began with a trip to what could quite possibly be the worst park in France, Magic Park Land.
I’ve seen some truly awful excuses for car parks in my life but Magic Park Land’s attempt is hands down the worst ever, it was like driving on the surface of the moon. Honestly it was impossible to not enter at least one of the thousands of potholes while dodging the literal boulders in the way. I’ve no idea how we managed to escape without any lasting damage.
Already at odds with the place, things were only about to go even further downhill.
You’ve heard it all before, long queue, in the sun, barely moving. This time though it was even longer still, featured frequent queue jumping and worst of all took place in the shadow of a Pinfari. Are we sure this is worth it?
Storm
And straight to that Pinfari we went…
When I rode this it was named Strom, now that its name has been spelt correctly this jerky, rattly, piece of crap coaster has absolutely nothing going for it.
Upon arriving at Formula 1, an off the shelf Fabbri spinning mouse, we discovered that the park operates some of their attractions like Jacquou Parc. Which in this case means 2 things, badly and that they close rides an hour after you’ve entered the park to have lunch.
Thankfully this time we just beat the cut off point to enter the queue. Not so thankfully we’d be forced to watch shady operations from an operator who clearly only had his mind set on his upcoming lunch, while the coaster structure itself was on the verge of collapsing any second.
If the picture above and park name don’t give it away, OK Corral is a family theme park dedicated to the Old West.
The park managed to win my trust before we’d even entered, when they agreed to give me a refund on the spot after one too many tickets were purchased through a misunderstanding. I’m certain very few parks would react in this way so that’s major bonus points to OK Corral.
Speaking of bonus points, OK Corral is a visual delight. The Western theme is solid throughout and that coupled with the park’s location surrounded by mountains mean there’s always something nice to look at.
Gold Rush
The first coaster to check out was one I was excited about.
Gold Rush is a Gerstlauer family shuttle coaster and it would be my first time getting to ride one of these rare beasts.
But first, sadly, OK Corral couldn’t help itself and made quite possibly the strangest entry into the medical mask saga so far.
We were waiting at the airgates in Gold Rush’s nicely presented station. All 3 of us were wearing our go to masks we had been wearing all trip. Some people in the station weren’t even wearing a mask. Then the operator comes up to Heartline and tells him that his mask isn’t good enough and he needs to change it…
Let that sink in. Some people weren’t even wearing masks, Heartline’s wife was wearing the exact same mask as him, but no he has to go change his, only him. It still makes my head hurt now…
Anyway back to the coaster, it’s really good fun, twisty, fast paced and with nice pops of air. Gerstlauer family coasters are some of the best out there and I’m happy to discover that their shuttle models are just as good.
What makes this rare coaster even more unique though is its seating arrangements. In keeping with the park’s Western theme, the front 3 rows of the coaster are ridden on horseback, while the rear 3 rows are ridden in chariots. While I honestly preferred riding in the chariots, there is no denying that for both visual and re-rideability reasons this was a genius move taken by the park.
No matter where you sit though, Pioneer is great fun and I’d really like to see more custom Zierer ESCs pop up around the World.
Then it was time to check out the park’s only dark ride offering, Mystères de l’Ouest. While nothing special, this ghost train themed to the Old West did manage to make this coward jump a few times, so I don’t feel in any position to bad mouth it.
The ride is in the building to the left of this picture.
The nice lady at admissions who helped me sort out my refund told us that we needed to check out one of the many shows the park run daily, so with time to kill before tonight’s Summer Funfair we took her up on that offer.
This is a view of the show arena, do you see what I mean about there always being something nice to look at now?
The show then…
It was certainly interesting…
First you got a fun and horse stunt heavy introduction to the bad guy Indians. Then you got a fun introduction to the good guy Cowboys. Then there was a fun and stunt filled battle between the 2, where all the Cowboys died and then the show was over…
No epic Cowboy revenge scene? In a park themed to Cowboys? No? Alright then.
I enjoyed it but man was the ending strange. How many of you would want me dead if I said I preferred it to Raveleijn? Sorry wait, no, that’s spoilers.
With that our visit to OK Corral was over and I’m pleased to say that I really enjoyed it. Heartline always had this park listed as something special but to me it was the surprise hit I desperately needed after the immense letdown that was Magic Park Land.
Funny Land
Next was a quick stop off at a place named Funny Land in order to ride their Wacky Worm.
The park is a free to enter, jutons (tokens) to ride affair, making it perfect for a speed run.
Crazy Chenille
The Wacky Worm ended up being the rarer and better model with the diagonal lifthill. These models from experience offer stupid unexpected airtime as you launch over the drop and Crazy Chenille was no exception to this rule.
The final park of the day was Magic World and was yet another Summer Funfair to add to our count.
Mouse Coaster
With another Reverchon spinning mouse. This one however I forgot to take a photo of.
Banzai
Banzai was next on the list and what a strange contraption it was.
The coaster is essentially a 100 foot tall butterfly and really is an experience of 2 halves. The honestly unnerving climb to the top, before turning into 2 minutes of endlessly rocking back and forth.
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.
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…
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 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.
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.
