The deeper I dive into this hobby, the more appealing the aspect of collecting certain categories becomes. What with all these ranking lists I throw around, it can feel much more satisfying to provide insight into the most definitive set possible, ones without the various gaps in experience that inevitably come with having not been absolutely everywhere (yet).
Some collections are obviously easier than others, which comes down to factors such as proximity, location and of course sheer numbers. There’s a fundamental sense of achievement in being able to say ‘I’ve done them all’ (gotta catch ’em all), though this is also laced with a more depressing undertone at the same time – there aren’t any more to have fun chasing down. Luckily a good majority of them will remain as moving goalposts, an endless source of entertainment to pursue and maintain in future.
The most recent collection I managed to complete was that of riding all the Gerstlauer Bobsleds to have ever been built. This particular achievement wasn’t planned out at all and was only noticed by chance, a passing thought during a road trip that happened to contain the last of the set. How many of these are left to try? RCDB says just Tiki Waka and you’re done. Well isn’t that something.
We’ve covered a couple ofother lists from German manufacturer Gerstlauer up to now, but what is this particular model all about? It was in fact the first ever rollercoaster they tried their hand at, back in 1998 when one of their nearby potential customers Erlebnispark Tripsdrill were looking to up their coaster game. As a park steeped in local folklore and the various histories of traditional workmanship, the queueline theme ended up looking at the construction and use of various sleds for the transportation of goods. The cars for the ride itself resemble such sleds, or sleighs, which in the modern era are something you’d only really expect to see around Christmas time.
This inaugural design appears to be how the coaster model took on its name, although it has led to some confusion amongst enthusiasts over the years. Bobsleds with a rather different design are of course featured in the Olympic winter games and there just so happens to be a coaster product that was once offered by both Intamin and Mack Rides back as far as the ’80s. Unlike those two, the Gerstlauer runs on traditional steel rails throughout the layout, mainly capitalising on the four-seater single cars to provide a ‘family-thrill’ experience packed with a combination of hairpin turns, twisted drops and airtime hills.
There was a time when I considered the majority of these as nothing more than a slight enhancement on the common Wild Mouse coaster, but having ridden a significant number of custom layouts, this year in particular, I have developed a new found appreciation for what they have to offer. Like most of the coaster world, if anything the designs are just getting better and better, what with over 20 years of refinement behind them now. So let’s take a look.
#14 Gold Rusher – Tatzmania Löffingen
The list begins with clones, of course. Much as I berate them, there’s actually nothing to stop a cloned layout being fantastic in it’s own right, but these particular ones (the 390/4 model) just don’t offer enough of the good stuff I’ve come to expect from the ride type. Gold Rusher in particular is an even more undecorated version of the under-decorated ride that follows it, complete with out-of-place tyre-driven section next to some wood, and so is about as copy and paste as you can get.
#13 Green Hornet: High Speed Chase – Motiongate
And here’s the original. For the fantastic park that is Motiongate, Green Hornet is underwhelmingly themed for a ride based on a movie franchise. Looks aside, there’s something about the more compact layout design that doesn’t sell it well. It comes with lots more twisting and turning which all leans on the repetetive side and gives of an air of certain common fairground coasters. Given that there isn’t actually much separating a lot of these, the single bunny hop just can’t compete with those that have multiple.
#12 Vilda Musen – Gröna Lund
Aside from the wonderful aspect of interaction that’s inherent with a rollercoaster at Gröna Lund I just don’t remember Vilda Musen riding that well. The layout is certainly inventive and unique, but it simply can’t do much with it’s height differential and relies a lot on Wild Mouse style laterals and sharp transitions. Which fits the name perfectly I suppose.
#11 Tiki-Waka – Walibi Belgium
I took the same sort of impression away from Tiki-Waka once I could actually tell what was going on amidst the rainstorm. It looks fantastic for starters, though with so much track located directly above pathway it’s a little meandering and lacks a bit of dynamic range even though it tries to be far more inventive than earlier examples with wacky track shaping and the like.
#10 Cobra – Paultons Park
Straight back into the highly similar designs, Cobra is quite formulaic but rather enjoyable for it. Twisty section. Lateral section. Twisty section. Airtime section. Twisty Section. You know where you stand with it – in a field.
#9 Thor’s Hammer – Djurs Sommerland
Essentially the same ride as the above, just with more accentuated hills and drops (plus a bonus helix) at the end, along with a nicer Norse vibe and the partial setting over water.
#8 G’sengte Sau – Erlebnispark Tripsdrill
And the original is the same as that, except much more nicely themed again, integrated deeper into the landscape, efficiently operated and has a hilarious German question on a sign that appears out of nowhere, mid castle.
#7 Aqua Wind – Lagunasia
Though suspiciously reminiscent of the 390/4, the 380/4 came many years beforehand and has that certain spark that was missing on the later attempts. Again the interaction with theming and setting help things along nicely, but overall it had more vigour and purpose for whatever reason.
#6 Drachenritt – Belantis
Though the almighty RCDB lists it as fully custom, as far as I can tell and recall this is a mirror image of the original (or the 480/4), with some slight tweaks to profiling here and there. The last drop under the bridge there is stretched out for instance, to go with yet more genius interaction with the surroundings. Once again I specifically remember this one riding just that bit harder and faster on the day we happened to experience it and sometimes that’s all you get to judge it from.
#5 Speed Rockets – Jardin d’Acclimatation
I rode all of this top 5 within the space of a few weeks on our most recent roadtrip through Europe and though they contain the most variety amongst everything we’ve seen so far, they’re also the hardest to separate in terms of enjoyment. Aside from having completed the set, the fact that they were all a cut above the rest was the inspiration for spotlighting them in a list like this in the first place. In trying new things with quirky designs, there’s a much greater range of forces to be found and that’s something I’m all about when it comes to ride layouts. Speed Rockets does that perfectly with strange double downs, whippy overbanked turns and a twisted approach to those bunny hills.
#4 Rattenmühle – Familypark
There’s charm by the bucketload to be found here with Rattenmühle, we’d bigged it up amongst ourselves for years (based on name alone) and it didn’t disappoint. The car design alone is worthy of the top half, yet there’s a station full of mischievous rats and a mischievous layout to match it. Even little details like the pre-lift drop and the slightly odd top hat-style element show us again that there’s so much more to be done than just helices.
#3 Gesengte Sau – Wiener Prater
While leaning back on the much more traditional Wild Mouse approach again in terms of fairgroundness and compact-icity, the modern Gesengte Sau is vertically huge in comparison to all the other layouts and finally makes proper use of that extra height differential with some rather cool bigger drops. With more block sections than ever (ones that it just happened to be ploughing straight through when we rode it, to the point of causing the ride system safely shut down on more than one occasion), there’s plenty of ride length to be had to and it’s all rather above average from start to finish. Which means I loved it and Austria has a strong Gerstlauer Bobsled game.
#2 Heiße Fahrt – Wild- und Freizeitpark Klotten/Cochem
I have a confession to make regarding this ride, one that I never mustered the courage to bring up in the recent trip report about it. I lost my hat on it. It feels like such an embarassing rookie error that should never have been made by someone who has travelled the world riding four figures of this type of thing and I am rather traumatised by the mere thought of the whole ordeal. All I can put it down to is how unexpectedly amazing Heiße Fahrt was, a disaster that’s testament to the coaster’s power. In believing I was fully prepared for whatever it could throw at me, the fact that does absolutely everything that’s great about the rides above, but better, caught me off guard. I was so distracted by how much I enjoyed it that I forgot about the simple things like worldly posessions jammed between my knees.
#1 Van Helsing’s Factory – Movie Park Germany
If we’ve learnt anything from this list it’s how well the ride type lends itself to theming and integration with the surroundings. Small punchy layouts with compact manouevers fit perfectly around any feature you want, unlike those big hulking hyper coasters. And so the standout of this particular category took it all a stage further and constructed the ride entirely indoors. Themed to the vampire hunting film franchise, this building is densely packed with scary setpieces and moments of interaction that simply bring the overall experience to another level. With all the visual spectacle going on, it puts the hardware to fantastic use by means of hidden surprises in those violent drops and turns and the end result is a quality themed attraction of the highest order.
2018, Southport. The Pinfari looper wasn’t ready first thing because of ‘health and safety stuff’ and ‘the rain’. We camped it out far longer than necessary to eventually be told “Got problems with the brakes, probably won’t open today.”
Let’s give that another go then.
Southport Pleasureland
Fast forward 3 years and exactly the same thing happened. This time the park is paid entry rather than per ride, so it stings just that little bit more.
Luckily they have added one other cred in the meantime, one of these littler Pinfari things that used to live in Scotland – seems they’re all gradually defecting.
Not sure why it’s called #1 The Rocket, I guess because just plain old Roller Coaster was already taken. The station had an interesting feature in the form of some discarded seatbelts lying on the platform. Some seats had them, some didn’t, the restraint is hilariously awkward (but at least not over the shoulder) and off we go. It isn’t the first of these I’ve ridden this year that’s surprisingly smooth for what it is. How are they managing it?
With no signs of life from the looper, the only other thing to get some money’s worth from was the Ghost Train. Being Halloween season and all that, it was rather popular and attracting a sizeable queue. The ride host was having a great time entertaining guests with a fake bloodied hand, throwing babies into the crowd and generally being a bit of a legend. Inside the ride itself there were also a couple of roaming scare actors, which I wasn’t expecting, so that managed to be quite effective in getting to us. Makes me think it’s something that this type of low end dark ride could do with on the regular, to make it stand out a bit.
As the rain set in and the train for the spiting coaster wasn’t even parked in the station, with no one around, it was time to give up on it yet again. Although some staff claimed ‘it may open later’, something which we’ve heard far too many times, they had already cancelled their fireworks and late opening hours so it clearly wasn’t going to be worth sticking around, particularly when someone was waiting for us at another park. Stupid Southport.
Gullivers Warrington
In better news we had once again achieved some success thanks to our new best friend at Gulliver’s Milton Keynes. He put us in touch with the relevant people at the Warrington establishment who were happy to receive us for the afternoon and escort us to the coasters.
Upon arrival, our contact had gone AWOL, but the admissions staff appeared to have been briefed on what was happening and so yet again, we ended up with free roam of the place.
First port of call was a somewhat momentous achievement. #2 Antelope was that all-elusive final wooden coaster to complete the UK set for me, in fact I’d have every operating woodie in Europe now were it not for a certain spite over in Madrid.
The layout looked quite good for what it was, though somehow it manages to ride hilariously poorly for the size. The first drop was punctuated with a highly vigorous to-and-fro pumping motion as soon as the train gathered any speed, shaking us all about in a purely comical, yet not painful fashion. The first turnaround was taken at incredibly slow speeds, crawling around like an overly exaggerated version of my regular playful mocking of Balder.
This cycle continued throughout the rest of the ride. Gain speed, shake violently, slow to a crawl, including during such highlights as the double up, the double down and the bonus straight at the end. Terrible ride, but it made us laugh a lot and was a ton of fun for it.
With the park having sold on numerous coasters over the years (an astonishing 4 of which I’ve managed to since pick up in their newer homes), the only other one required here was the well named #3 Wriggler. Took a while trying to find it, eventually doing so and racking up a couple of proud laps on yet another Wacky Worm for the season.
Time to check out the dark ride selection. Sadly the Gilly Princess Ride was out of action. Doesn’t look like a gamechanger, but would have been nice to experience it for research purposes.
Temple Raider was going strong at least, though we sadly narrowly missed out on their Halloween overlay timeslot, with many costumed scare actors pouring out of the ride whilst we stood in the queue.
Which resulted in a rather humble affair, it could have done with a few scares. The ride had guns at some point though they appear to have been removed and you can still spot the targets as you travel around some generic ‘temple raiding’ type scenery. Nothing special, but rounded off the visit nicely.
And so ends the day on a not too unhealthy +3. Not the greatest of successes but I’ll take what I can get at this point and this time of year.
Poor Walibi Belgium. They’ve had a rough year to coincide with the opening of their brand new headline coaster. I really admire them for all the hard work and effort that went into getting the place up and running again before the end of the season, after seeing just some of the extent of the flood damage, and thought it was only right to visit and show our support.
And yet day 2 of their grand re-opening weekend – rain like you wouldn’t believe it. The final few minutes of the motorway drive were particularly hairy when it came to visibility, with water hammering in on all sides. Not the best of omens when heading to a park that’s only just been crippled by this type of weather.
Day 2 – Walibi Belgium
As we pulled into the car park, there were only about 10 others in total. We were vaguely directed towards a space, though ended up picking the one wrong spot in a sea of emptiness. Top tip – don’t park next to a tree, they like to keep them clear for emergency access, though they might not tell you that until you’ve already stopped and got out.
The moment I had stepped out of the car, though the actual rain had subsided just a little, one of my shoes was instantly filled with water. Bracing ourselves against the weather with whatever resources necessary, we headed towards the entrance. This is either going to go very wrong, or be amazing.
Expecting the masses, a large series of cattlepens had been set up as the only means of access to the ticket desks that morning and, though it ended up being entirely unnecessary given the current situation, they were unavoidable. And so our day began with several pointless minutes zigzagging back and forth through endless puddles, getting soaked to the bone and already unable to see.
Once inside the park we headed straight towards the back, though only by internal compass. Rocking my raincoat hood down low, along with a medical mask and glasses combo, all I could do was stare at the blurred floor directly two feet in front of me and I didn’t actually manage to lay eyes on any rides at all until we reached the new (to me) area.
Kondaa was showing no signs of life at this stage and had two staff members standing ominously at the entrance, but Tiki-Waka was drowning a couple more staff members with some test laps.
Though it was yet another Belgian Gerstlauer I had managed to suppress, it actually became a momentous occasion. By riding #1 Tiki-Waka I had now completed the entire set of their Bobsled coasters worldwide, all 14 of the beasts.
Sadly this one broke the tradition of ‘every time I ride one of these I keep thinking it’s the best one yet.’ While it looks fantastic (once I could actually see it) and has many more of those quirky track profiling moments, there’s a bit less of an overall punch here than I had grown accustomed to, even while not being able to see what was coming next, but at least it’s unique yet again. Probably also took the crown of best coaster in the park for three years, without too much effort.
More good news, #2 Kondaa was now also testing.
I’d bigged this modern Intamin Mega up in my head for a good while now, though I didn’t know the ins and outs. The theme was all brand new to me and the ride joins the ever-growing list of mythical creatures that find themselves decorating an Intamin train. In this case, Kondaa is a big snake thing with arms, who has a bit of a clash with the local humans. Maybe they’re building on his habitat, maybe he’s just being predatory, there’s an excellent mural on the outside far wall of the station building that depicts a bit of a battle scene between the two. Some men on their knees, head in hands, doomed (will that be me shortly?), while two cheeky bastards abandon the cause run off with one of his eggs. I’m already loving the aesthetic. The station has a cramped, jungle feel to it, with great accompanying audio. Took a few listens to work it out, but the tribal chanting that echoes throughout is actually repeating the word Kond – Aa in two disctinct syllables. Maybe they’re trying to appease him, maybe they’re building themselves up for the fight. Yet more paintings on the wall depict men literally riding the creature’s back by means of the spears they’ve stabbed into him in combat. Guess that’s the experience we’re going for.
What with all the external sensations of the weather and my temporary blindness pressing in on me, I really had the time to process that we were actually riding Kondaa until part way up the excitingly fast chain lift. Suddenly we were thrust into a big, vertical twisted drop and, by means of the train alone, it’s already better than GeForce.
The first large hill is an interesting one. It’s not your standard massive ejector experience you might expect from Intamin, instead I feel like it’s more what I always wanted B&M hypers to be/do. There’s a combination of a gentle lift out of the seat and a more intense ejection at different points, that can flip depending on where you sit, and I like that, it’s not just a tease, it still has payoff.
The wacky outerbanked big hill is pretty special if you’re feeling a bit free and easy in those comfy seats. Yet more strange, falling out of the train sideways sensations are coming into play, though nothing in the realms of their wing coasters. It was also often a fun moment later on in the day for the views of Calamity Mine’s second half. Though it took five laps before I even managed to spot it, many times after that the little mine train would pop out of it’s tunnel and say hello to Kondaa in a cute moment of interaction.
The non-inverting cobra roll is a bit of a non-event in the grand scheme of things and I’m tempted to say it should have just actually inverted. There might then have been a bit more whip in the transitions, perhaps like a double version of the dive loop on Hyperion. Instead it doesn’t really deliver much except a very strange creaking noise from the train and I’m left feeling like it was an element created for the sake of the name. We want to build the world’s first ‘one of those’ and see what happens.
This is turning into one of those reviews where I keep name-dropping other relevant coasters, so I may as well keep going. The exit of that leads into the first of the speed hills, rather reminiscent of the highlight moments of Coaster through the Clouds, combining that momentum with some headchopping (albeit a little late) to really send you flying for a moment, though perhaps not quite as powerfully as I would have hoped.
At the risk of continuing to sound a bit negative (I love this thing, but nitpicking is what I do), Intamin appear to have failed to break the tradition of having a meandering couple of corners in the middle of their mega coasters. I desperately wanted this creation to cast away the shackles of it’s oppressive forebearers, yet it still appears to follow that age old underlying formula. The turns are at least low-down, fast and far less jarring than the competition in their impact on the layout, but without a key highlight like a snappy i305 transition or something it still feels sub-optimal. Also, worryingly, this part contains a sideways banked hill that rode exactly like the one on Abyssus – pure visual, all style and no substance, didn’t feel a thing on it.
Good stuff returns in the form of a second speed hill, and then a weird combination of drawn out twisty hill into wonky double down on a corner that I don’t have a name for. This leads into another decent airtime moment, some more low down twisty and then the hilarious climax of little flat hills that are just silly fun. This is the type of creative stuff I can get more behind and adds a certain wild flavour to the ride that is more often than not lacking on Intamin’s clinical airtime machines. A strong start and a strong finish, it all feels so familiar.
And that’s the quandary for me. It both is and it isn’t like their past creations I’ve regularly bemoaned for being too ‘obvious’. It draws on their beats and yet delivers them all differently. There’s more spice and more flavour to Kondaa, it has an out of control feeling at times, but it never truly kicks your ass like you might have expected from the manufacturer. While these days I would tend to be drawn towards coasters that take everything to an extreme, I can also just be appeased by a good, solid, fun layout. And it is that, for one of these. World class yes, world beater no.
They do have other stuff here of course. It had been far too long since I was acquainted with Challenge of Tutankhamon, so much so that it had begun to fade in my memory. Our previous visit was such a rush, what with fast track and SLCs to contend with, that it barely made an impact. Far from just another shooting dark ride, this is potentially the best of its kind in the world. It appears to have been well loved just recently, with many of the more technical effects working really well, much more so than I remember from before at least.
The ride provides a perfect balance between interaction and spectacle, something which I believe so many others miss the mark on. You feel compelled to both shoot at the targets, many of which are (for the sake of the story) active moving threats, and gaze in amazement at all the other scenery and magic (fire!), with neither disctracting from the other. Underneath all that is the drive to actually score well as a a team, not just for unrelated bragging rights, because achieving a certain amount will take you down a different route at the end of the ride, to fight the big boss. More to see, more to do – get involved!
Why have one shooting dark ride when you can have two though? I was a little concerned for what Popcorn Revenge would be like, though admittedly knowing nothing about it. Turns out it’s also fabuous in its own right and the two are easily different enough to justify the co-existence.
These popcorn critters are out for mischief and need flavouring to calm them down, so the trackless ride vehicles pass between a central, circular hub to reach several different rooms that contain a screened scene for shooting. There are a lot of fun little details beyond your average screen based romp however, with each room being complimented by some degree of physical set, a chaotic little screen in the central room from which you can continuously rack up points while transitioning to each area and other, more hidden bonus ways to score points. Loved it.
Elsewhere on the dark ride front we gave Palais du Genie another shot. Again this was better than I remember, mainly in the music department. It had a solid, catchy tune playing throughout the main madhouse portion, something that all of these should have by default.
Time to mop up the last cred, #3 Fun Pilot, the Zierer Force 190 putting in all the hard work while the legendary Coccinelle is out of action.
It was rather amusing to contemplate what else in this park justifies a reride, the place used to be such a cred run and yet they’ve done so much to dramatically transform that status in such short time. Belgium’s getting serious. Why can’t we?
Settled on Calamity Mine for old time’s sake, though I’ve since ridden a hundred different iterations of the same throughout China. The OG version still has charm and is nicely decorated for it, though it is a little distracting to have Kondaa looming over it now.
Based on how dramatically the wooden coaster experience can change over time, thought we might as well give Loup Garou a lap as well. I took issue with the restraints previously and spent the duration surviving, rather than enjoying. Not sure exactly how, but they weren’t an issue in the slightest on this occasion, which then only helped to highlight that it just aint very special. A lot of mild mannered bouncing around that makes for some light entertainment, much like the Intamins of old.
All this was done between wanting to rack up some ridiculous number of laps on Kondaa simply because it was a walk on all day (thanks to the weather) and really, stupidly good. The aim was to better 16, which was my tied personal best between local boy Icon and the recent Ride to Happiness revelation. That became far too easy by the end of the day. See if you can beat 22.
You’ve probably had enough of me for one year, but here we go again. It still felt like there was more in the tank for more redemption once the reopening of a certain Belgian park was announced. As we already had the travel procedures down to a fine art it became a case of get it done, quick, before something else goes wrong.
The world seemingly threw everything it had at me to stop me riding Kondaa this year. Obviously the ever-present pandemic and endless travel restrictions prevented us from flocking with the rest of Europe back during the initial opening days. Nature had a say next, with those terrible floods that put the park out of action for the duration of our time on the continent. Once we were geared up and ready to go, logistical issues kicked in, in the form of the UKs self-fulfilling prophecy of a fuel crisis – until the penultimate day I wouldn’t have had enough (in the non-metaphorical tank) to even make it the tunnel anyway. Finally on the evening before departure, the covid tests that we’d pre-booked with precision at a local pharmacy simply didn’t exist upon our arrival. “Oh, we don’t do those any more, no one does” And you were going to tell us when? Many phone calls and a panicked night-time journey to Gatwick Airport for a drive-thru test that massively confused everyone involved (“so, what flight are you taking then.” – none!) managed to save the day. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
Day 1 – Bellewaerde
2017, Ypres. Back in the days when Belgium was generally unremarkable in terms of a coaster scene, we were forever at fault for underestimating all of their parks and spiting ourselves on the regular. Just because the creds aren’t all that, doesn’t mean the place isn’t fleshed out in other ways – a lesson I’ve never managed to learn. What with staggered openings and two sides of brand new and not-so exciting Dawsons Duel to deal with, Bellewaerde became one of many visits that wasn’t without issue.
We had the privilege of going through the main entrance on this particular occasion, one that paints the park in a far better light when it comes to first impressions.
This is all new to me, I only remember queues, people smoking and Boomerangs.
Checked out Bengal Rapid River first, one of those weird looking Vekoma versions with the low-profile flexy boats. They make for a rather different experience, there was an entertaining theme tune playing throughout several parts of the layout, but it ain’t no Hafema.
Our main reason for revisiting, besides from needing something to do and the fact that it was half-price with the Plopsa card, was #1 Wakala.
I had pretty much suppressed the entire existence of this ride, which is a shame, because Gerstlauer are still delivering strong on these top quality family coasters and this use of fun, quirky track shaping is getting bolder by the minute.
It’s a great little layout with a significant ride length. The first lift hill takes you up and through the aforementioned twisty goodness for a good while, before hitting a second tyre lift that gives you a playful almost-launch down into this weird straight.
Which leads to this genius little spike out over the lake. A brief moment of backwards gets the train straight back to that weird straight which also happens to be the final brakes, with the use of a little switch track to return to the station. The station has great audio on departure and arrival, the trains look real nice, it runs super-efficiently and is a ton of fun. Weird pacing, but can’t fault it.
While dwelling on that little victory, we hung our heads in shame as we looked upon Dawsons Duel from afar. Never again.
Something else we managed to miss, never again, was the park’s main dark ride, Maison Magique D’Houdini. Colour me massively confused because I had no idea what went on in here, other than ‘Madhouse’. Narration was present of course but, you know, Flemish. There’s a preshow, in a room of full of artifacts from magic trips and escape artistry, that shows some old-timey footage of a classic bit of magic performed by two kids. It jarringly ends by zooming in on the face of one of them suddenly looking rather deranged, with an evil laughter sound effect. Time to board the ride. It looks rather good inside, a few variations on the usual tricks and some extra things to look at, such as lightning in the fake windows. Spinning happens, magic happens, ending happens. We’re at peace with Houdini? Or his evil best friend? I’ll go with yes.
Something else we managed to miss, never again, was the park’s themed boat safari, Jungle Mission. A somewhat inspired adventure that intertwines zoo action, being attacked by ‘locals’ and a cave section in which stuff goes down. The highlight for me was a scene in which a man appeared to be smoking himself out of his own hut, standing at the window, potentially dying, not caring, with a look that says ‘I’ve made my choice.’
Took great pleasure in not riding the Zierer Tivoli or patient zero of the Boomerang world.
Instead giving the rest of our allocated time to Huracan, which had always been rather decent. They’ve done things to this. The trains felt new, bigger, now with on-board audio (I honestly can’t remember last time though). It also moved far slower through the first indoor section with all the theming, music now blaring. This section contained some different things like weird screens of glass full of tiny bubbles in place of raging waterfalls.
Outdoor coaster section was the same of course and then back inside I want to say there was far more going on with lasers and other visual effects. Turned something from rather decent into just plain decent. Good job Bellewaerde, you’re fully redeemed.
Coo may have been gone, but it wasn’t forgotten. After brimming the tank with some sweet Belgian fuel and having a hilarious run in with some sour Belgian road rage, we arrived at our second park for the day.
Plopsa Coo
This moose is on the way out, but I’ll mention him in place of an entrance shot, of which there isn’t much of one. He moves, he talks, we’re off to a good start.
Gerstlauer Spinners are a rare breed out this way, with the US seemingly being the biggest fans of the model. I’ve never been bowled away by one, they generally appear to lack something I can’t quite pinpoint. Is it spinning?
Well #2 Vicky the Ride certainly looked the part, but the trend continues, in my experience. It had a rather cool drop and the ‘what Maurer calls an immelman’ element was nice to see, though not a whole lot else to offer.
I had a sudden urge to ride Dino Splash (the scary blue one, obviously) upon seeing it. It’s not every day you get to pull a crazy stunt like that without dedicating yourself to swimwear and a waterpark and it simply had to be done. Scary, crazy, vertical and backwards. Genius.
I’d always liked the look of #3 Halvar. A terrain layout in those rare but cool single file Vekoma trains of Megablitz fame? Sign me up, I said.
It wasn’t quite what I’d hoped, definitely far more family orientated than it’s lung-crushing funfair cousin, just look at that profiling. Entertaining and unique at least.
Have to imagine this little scenic feature looked rather more scary back when this park also fell foul of the flood.
Looks like they’re trying to stop it happening again.
One more ride to do, Bobsleigh, yet another crazy eye-catcher from on the way in. There’s clearly more to Coo than creds. I had questions: 1) Why are they going backwards up that lift hill? 2) Why are there empty poles coming back down on a cable? 3) Why does the end of the track have an end? 4) Why are staff/guests picking up and carrying the cars at the bottom?
Questions that could only be answered by riding. 1) Because why not? Wiegand are nutters. 2) These poles stretch and hook onto the back of each car, dragging it up the lift hill. 3 & 4) Because the lift hill and the downwards section of track are entirely separate.
You get to pick a car and lug it onto the bottom of the lift hill yourself before boarding and having a staff member hook you up to the system. The lift hill mainly comprises of nice views and the feeling like you’re going to fall into some leaves at any minute, because the only thing keeping you on the standard plastic tea tray with no back is physics, the fact that you are travelling backwards. At long last you reach the top, which once again involves unceremonious lugging of transportation devices.
They’re quite hefty, even in their handily auto-folded state. Now it’s time to load it up on the starting angle, remembering to keep the brake pinned down at all costs before making a fool of yourself. Not on a track of your choice sadly, for some unexplained reason one track is for singles and one is for doubles, so no chance of any fair racing. And down you go.
All in all a nice little place with some interesting and quirky attractions. It’s got a great setting and was very refreshing to see how the place has it’s own charm, mostly free from the corporate-chainy-feel of many other Plopsa properties. Not sure it justifies the day ticket and parking cost though – definitely get that season pass.
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%)
Coo’s gone! One of the many statements made at Phantasialand. If we thought De Panne was hard to get into, it wasn’t even the worst of the Plopsas for having an awkward calendar, running weekends only and having sporadic blackout dates for total takeovers, Plopsa Coo suddenly became unobtainable mid-trip. This meant that a day that was originally billed to be boring +1s for the sake of a Plopsa card was freed up for some unfinished business.
Starting with a Eurodemption casualty from last year.
Day 22 – Fraispertuis City
And what a glorious day for it.
After almost two weeks without riding a Soquet, it was good to get reacquainted with the French classic.
#1 Grand Canyon was most notable for having hilariously violent braking on the ‘mid-course’ and the fact that the layout has been extended since the original design. Bonus helix!
Another park with coasters all the same colour. Another Zierer Tivoli. This time a small called #2 Ronde des Rondins.
And of course their signature S&S El Loco, #3 Timber Drop.
Rode smooth, I still kinda like them for their quirky elements. Not bad at all, if you get the restraints just right (years of Slammer experience finally paying off).
Highlight of the park is this monster though, the Golden Driller.
A massive Intamin drop tower with a vast array of seating/standing options. I love how the guy is still wearing his hat in each, no fear. Warmed up on the sit down tilt, which was really good, then went for the standing tilt, which is apparently the tallest in the world for that specific configuration. I thought I had no fear either when it came to drop towers these days, though it was triggered by something unexpected. Once you get to the top there’s a camera thing on a stick pointing at you from above. For some reason clocking that, rather than something in the far distance, then noticing what it’s attached to suddenly made me appreciate the full extent of what was about to happen, far too late. Which made it all the more fun of course. Love a good stomach plummeting drop.
The park obviously have a thing for drop towers as well, as they also have this vicious little Le Cactus. One of those teasing bouncy numbers that violently chucks you forwards at the last second of the cycle. Terrifying.
With that it was park complete, time to grab some crêpes for the road. Felt good to finally dust off Fraispertuis, yet another one of those parks that kept meaning to happen but never did. It’s a great little place, though wouldn’t be much cop if ridiculous drop towers aren’t your thing, other than the +3. On a personal note it’s a shame I now feel like I don’t really have anything left to do in France though except wait for Asterix to step the game up, twiceover.
We were now geographically as close as we were going to get to revenging that silly Swiss Chocolate Museum that also never happened. Time for another stupid drive to Lucerne I guess…
The place, officially, is the Swiss Transport Museum.
But we were here for their dark ride – a shipping container on a scissor lift.
Or maybe that was just the weird means of getting to the right floor, complete with themed screens.
The actual Swiss Chocolate Adventure ride is a fascinating use of trackless vehicles as a ‘virtual tour’ of Lindt’s chocolate making process. All the audio is in German, but they provide you with little handheld walkie talkie type devices that can shout whatever language you like right into your ear, provided you don’t get distracted easily or push a wrong button.
It’s really long, thankfully, goes on for around 20 minutes in total and travels between a combination of just screens with narration.
Rooms with physical sets.
Rooms with layered rotating cutouts of cows.
Rooms with mesmerising mechanical devices stirring up chocolate that may or may not be real.
And, most importantly of all, a room where you drive up to a nozzle that shoots out a load of free chocolates (wrapped) at you.
It’s nothing thrilling obviously and there wasn’t even much in the way of groundbreaking information from an educational perspective. People farm beans, we buy them, we squash them, chocolate. I liked watching the system go to work mainly, the positioning of all the different places you need to get to in the right order is a little all over the place, so there’s many an opportunity for cars dancing around each other, queueing up or getting stuck and plenty of second guessing as to what’s coming next. We had a weird interlude, for want of a better word, where it just went round and round the warehouse looking outer area for a bit, gold disco lights flashing and music blaring. My best guess is either a cover story for an interruption in operation or it simply broke itself and thought that was the most fun way to compensate – I’m inclined to agree.
I had a lot of fun with it, but by no means would I recommend going out of your way for this thing, especially not to the extent that we did. If you’re in Switzerland, give it a passing thought, but it ain’t no Cadbury World.
We actually rather enjoyed our time here before, it was definitely one of those parks that got a worse rep than it deserved and so were were looking forward to experiencing all some of it again, along with their brand new attraction and a couple of other rethemes.
The new attraction being the catchily titled #1 Movie Park Studios. With so many of these Intamin things popping up, I had forgotten which ones did what, especially with that deceiving ‘multi-dimension coaster’ label that was being thrown around. Which dimension is it?
This one begins with a preshow, a Marty McFly looking bloke is projected here, welcoming us to the Studios and standing in for director Steven Thrillberg who we were supposed to meet – except he’s too busy making three films at once. But no worries, we can still have a tour. (If you want a more eloquent write-up, check this out). Things get convoluted and we’re introduced to a goofy automated ride system called SAM, I suppose giving an explanation as to why the tour is a rollercoaster (and that certain things go a bit wrong), though it didn’t feel strictly necessary to do this and pads the runtime a bit.
Sadly, almost as if to compensate for that fact, you then get a bit rushed through the next part of the queue which contains windows to some very intricately themed rooms containing all sorts of props, drawings and little details of other rides around the park, past and present. Bypassing all that in a blur takes you straight up to the station stairs, where Steven Thrillberg himself is chatting stuff on a TV and your carriage awaits.
After climbing into the cars, which are a bit Objectif Mars again, sans spinning, you despatch round the first corner and immediately take a wrong turn, ending up in the middle of a house about to get torn apart by a tornado. Effects happen and I fully expected a drop track here, but instead we got a backwards launch. I’ll take it.
You next end up on a turnable that goes the long way round, 270° past a bank of studio monitors with technology going a bit haywire before proceeding forwards again into the set of a car chase movie. With a drop right along side a rival car, the main launch hits and sends you up out into the outside world.
For the little entrance fly by section, which is a fun moment.
Heading back inside for a couple of faster turns, you come across the last of the three movies – King Kong kicking off at stuff, though it rushes past in a bit of a blur at our new found speed. The tour is complete, thanks for riding.
Well, it’s great as a ‘dark ride’. The coaster itself is a bit of a non-event if that’s what you’re going for, it’s a good dynamic piece of hardware that does the job well and a nice bonus that it happens to be a cred I guess. Looks like I was wrong about the drop track!
Could have done with a bit more proof reading at the end here.
Just next door is the rethemed rapids ride, now Excalibur. I never did the old queue as we ended up with fastrack last time and slithered in through a side door instead. This was here now, might have been before, would that make sense? Probably not. Big and impressive though.
I’m all for rapids rides with significant indoor sections and good levels of theming, there’s something a bit more magical about the water sloshing around in the dark and the peril that comes with it. It’s well paced, fun and ends with finding Excalibur of course, in a big cave. Was it better than Mystery River? Couldn’t say.
Walked straight past all the family coasters that would have been so much easier to ride this time around, if only that was how the hobby worked. Sadly Time Riders (the vicious John Cleese simulator) was out of action for ‘local covid restrictions’, although I’m led to believe this is a more permanent doing and it’s the next attraction to be overhauled. May never be the same again.
Van Helsing was ready to kick ass though, the fantastically themed Gerstlauer Bobsled. Maybe I’ve been wrong thinking all these new ones might be the best one yet, I love this thing. Fast paced, grim, violent, with surprise hairpins and/or airtime in the dark, it’s proper quality stuff.
As is the queue for Star Trek: Operation Enterprise. They’ve done away with the preshows here interestingly, I remember thinking they hurt the rerideability a bit, especially as they didn’t really link so well to the series, after being immersed so well in all the rest of it.
I feel like this Mack launch coaster is exactly as I remember it, just that my standards have gone up quite considerably, particularly given what had happened a couple of days prior. It’s fine, competent, nothing special, a good mix of forces here and there. Triple launches are starting to feel a bit faffy without anything spectacular at either end and I find myself wanting to get into the meat of the ride more quickly. Still lacks a conclusion as a themed experience as well. Did we get assimilated or what? Also the furry communicator badges on their uniforms look a bit ropey and were starting to bug me as the day went on.
Instead of redoing John Cleese, I feel like they should be paying more attention to the beachy American area with the two terrible creds (and no, repainting the SLC doesn’t count). It’s a weird transition from nicely decorated studio rides to cheap looking Diskos, generic theming and industrial wasteland. We walked straight round the lot in a loop to remind ourselves what was there worth riding, and the answer was nothing.
Time for a little distracted detour. With less than 72 hours until we would be heading home, we needed a negative covid test result from somewhere, anywhere. The park themselves were hosting a little test centre out in the car park so we figured it might be worth a shot and headed out to see them now that the morning rush was over. Better than stumbling into some obscure pharmacy in a city, as was the original plan, at least.
Though our request was unusual, ‘we want a test to go home in three days, not to get into the park we’ve already been in’, they knew exactly what we were on about, were super helpful about it all and got right to it, giving us exactly what we needed. Major relief there.
To celebrate(?) the fact we could now end the holiday soon, we rode Area 51, another more tenuously rethemed water/dark ride. Forgot how huge the drop in the dark was for such a big boat, it goes on for an age and is quite a special moment. Alien stuff happens as you drift around in the depths of the indoor section, followed by a backwards portion waiting for a drop that never comes. The final descent out of the volcano is stil hilariously tame and I’m simply not enough of an expert to have noticed the differences. Was it better than Bermuda Triangle? I couldn’t say.
It had been chucking down with rain at certain points and everything in the park was walk on, so we did struggle somewhat to last the day, even though we wanted to give the place every opportunity. They’ve got many solid attractions and definitely appear to be heading in the right direction, just nothing with that killer instinct to keep you there indefinitely. All other cred options in the area had already been exhausted, so we took an early long drive back towards the French border for the night. All coming full circle. -ish.
One of the reasons we ended up arriving too early for F.L.Y. last year was that we had originally planned to use that day for a much dearer old friend to pick up some new attractions, but the various national restrictions at that time just weren’t playing ball. This year, they were.
Day 20 – Efteling
Not seen that shot before.
Instead of the usual joke about being here for the +1s, I’ll be up front. I wanted Symbolica, badly. I’d left it so long now that I had almost forgotten why that was.
Though the queue soon reminded me of that. The whole attraction oozes that Efteling quality from the moment you set foot inside the building and this impressive animatronic waffles on at you about not going any further.
Cheeky Jester Pardoe has other plans though, and invites us deeper into the attraction for some magical mischief.
Descending the square spiral staircase gives us this clue as to what we’re in for. A trackless dark ride of course, the perfect hardware for some sorcery. The ride has three different ‘tours’ which form three different loading areas in the station. While they follow the same overall storyline, each one contains a couple of key differences during the layout. The cars also have touch screens in the front which can be used to interact with things at certain points during the ride.
We began with the treasure tour and, in their batches of 3, the cars set off down a castle corridor, amusingly getting up to some overtaking antics that I love to see from this type of hardware. The first main room is rather magnificent, a big wizard’s lab with floating planets in which another animatronic Pardoe appears out of nowhere and casts a visible spell on each car.
Through the next corridor, cars move out onto a balcony overlooking a very Efteling style diorama scene before moving on into an arboretum type room which, for some reason, has a friendly whale in it, behind a glass wall. The glass can’t take the strain and begins to crack, with water beginning to pour out of the gaps. Time to back away quickly past another Pardoe who tells you to hurry up.
At this point the cars spilt off again ino their own respective rooms, themed to whichever tour you’re on. Magical stuff happens and the interactivity comes into play a bit before moving into a large cluttered area full of furniture and artifacts where other cars appear from all angles. At some point during this they reach another tour exclusive point, pausing for a while in a little side area while you get another opportunity to mash the screen and make things move or light up.
Finally it’s time to pass through the cellar, getting shot by wine corks and crashed into by stacks of pancakes along the way, before entering the last big room with everyone else. There’s a banquet with the castle family inside a big ballroom where the cars dance around each other and a couple of twirling couples. A fun and light-hearted way to end the spectacular experience.
I can’t fault the thing really, other than for having several effects out of action since the opening days (biggest one being the whale himself) – something that appears to be occurring quite regularly with Efteling as of late. Maintenance aside, easily one of the finest dark rides in Europe. Managed to pick up the heroes tour later in the day, which nicely leaves one more to aim for (music tour – sounds like the best) on a future visit!
Took some time to look around the actual dioramas of old. Love their distinctive styling.
Wanted to try the ‘Raveleijn’ show this time around, having never made time for it before, so we booked the earliest slot of the day on the app, then had a panic and nearly lost it again after overthinking and trying to be cheeky and change plans on the fly.
In the meantime, nearby Droomvlucht was a must. I love being immersed in the soundtracks of Efteling and this one feels so nostalgic already, floating through fairy worlds, amazing music blasting.
Villa Volta had a similar effect once you actually get on board, but the preshow ratio is a bit off (not helped by not understanding the language) and seems to go on forever, particularly on rerides. They were also playing a weird cut down version of the main theme on a perpetual 30-second loop in the queue, which of course we then heard 100 times over, that took the edge off it a bit.
After making a lucky recovery, it was time to head into the Raveleijn arena for what should have been a spectacular show.
Had big expectations for some reason and they were a little misplaced. I’m led to believe this was a slightly cut down version, for covid, but knowing what I know now, the fundamentals I took issue with would still be there.
The birds they use are cool, cleverly trained, pretty magic. The horse stunts aren’t the best, a bit more OK Corral than Colourful Yunnan Paradise. One of the horses in particular was kicking off and giving the rider a tough time, which only dragged out the fairly insignificant sequence even further while it sorted itself out. The elephant in the room is the big mechanical dragon, Dragonicon (though I do like that he has a name). As the next in a long line of effects no longer working, he doesn’t rise up from the floor any more, so he’s just there, chillin’, throughout all of the rest of the show. Once he starts kicking off, when the narrative dicates, the impact just isn’t there, although fire effects are always a winner in their own right. It wasn’t clear (without translation at least) who was good, who was bad, who was fighting what throughout, even through the use of simple colours and the manner in which certain characters were introduced, so it all felt a bit inconclusive. Oh well.
Let’s see what they’ve done to my beloved Pandadroom, now known as Fabula.
It’s a Mack Media overhaul of the old ‘save the planet and the pandas’ 4D cinema, with new characters, new plot, new everything. And it’s decent. The pre-show sets up this grumpy bear in a cave who doesn’t like to share his space with the other animals, cruelly sending them out into the rain. A tiny wizard bloke decides to teach him some morals and magic begins.
Once in the actual theatre, the bear gets sucked into various portals to new habitats and transformed into a different animal, to suit each one. A squirrel from the cave accidentally gets caught up in this and, through the course of several adventures they become best friends, eventually living back in the cave, happily ever after. There’s some good little nods to the attraction that came before, some subtle, some as obvious as several pandas in a forest. Sadly the big tree effect didn’t go off (broken?), though it felt like it easily would have been incorporated. It’s charming and a bit of fun, just not quite the emotional and musical powerhouse that it once was.
The last new attraction (finally, some creds) was #1 Max Moritz, the duelling powered coasters that replaced old Bob.
Of course there’s a good bit of lore behind the scenes for this, two kids and their soap box racers.
I thought that they could pull off something a bit more special though, bring the Mack powered coaster into the 21st century a bit more. Plohn’s is better, what does that say? Plus points are all the little details and effects in the station (how long will they last?) and the genius onboard soundtrack that plays a catchy tune, slowly for the first lap and then more quickly for the second. In terms of duelling and interaction however I found it all a bit sub-optimal. The track layouts aren’t particularly decorated (or even interesting) and there’s only one real moment of crossover between the two trains at any point – you’d expect at least a handful. There’s also some weird pacing going on in the climax of one of the sides.
Time for some classic coasters. Vliegende Hollander was just as gorgeous as I remember on the inside, although the water projection wasn’t working…
And just as anti-climactic on the outside. Segues nicely into Joris en de Draak though.
I’m very disappointed. What were usually my favourite GCIs on the continent were running very poorly both on-ride and operationally. The queue was fairly hefty and yet dispatches were taking 6-7 minutes, with the staff just lounging around without a care in the world between laps. Sitting onboard the train with enough time for the entire ride theme to play through multiple times does absolutely nothing for the atmosphere of a fast-paced racing coaster and it ended up becaming somewhat of a chore.
Then once it did get going it was just a bit weak. Cracking layout with very little delivery. With a broken dragon of course, so no namesake water or fire either.
Which left big Vogel Rok to be the best coaster in the park for the day. All the effects budget must have gone into this awesome indoor coaster, it was running better than ever with all sorts of trickery happening. The onboard audio is sublime, I just love singing along to it as it swoops around. Perfection.
Oh, yeah, they’ve got Baron 1898 as well. The world’s most beautifully themed, but least intimidating dive coaster. With the usual nothingness of a layout. I still love the theatrics of it at least. And mist. Mist is good.
Fata Morgana was the bomb, as always. Stuff wasn’t working of course, but I think that’s been the case ever since my first visit and it still kicks ass.
Stayed to watch the Aquanura show at the end of the day and was left feeling a bit… deflated. There were a lot more holes in Efteling this time, I used to think they could do no wrong and yet it’s either overexposure on my part or their standards are slipping. I always got the impression they pride themselves on being better than the rest and through a variety of factors that just didn’t feel evident this time around. Still a lovely, fulfilling day out of a park and I adored Symbolica, but they ain’t on a pedestal any more.
2017, De Panne. A faffy cred hunting trip that ended in failure. The inadequacies of Plopsaland and our own misplaced stubborn desperation to ride a cloned GCI that had broken down resulted in us missing out on Vleermuis, potentially forever. Ticket machines were out of order, staff were slow and chunnels were missed. Not the best of impressions were left.
Many years later they weren’t making it any easier for us, with sporadic opening dates and a soon-to-be-abolished pre-book system that wouldn’t let you pre-book. We ended up getting full blown Plopsa season cards in anticipation of dusting off several other +1s from the chain either later in the trip or within the next year. Saves a fortune on parking at least.
Day 19 – Plopsaland De Panne
Ideally we would have visited this on the way home, seeing that the park is under an hour from the channel tunnel and closer to my house than Alton Towers, but a 6 hour round trip from the German border, on a Wednesday of all days, would just have to do.
Was it worth it? Yes. The reason for visiting of course was the recently opened Ride to Happiness. I had no idea what to expect, having never ridden a Mack Xtreme Spinner and not understanding the rather unusual theme that came with it and, well, we’ve certainly got something special on our hands here.
I’ve totally fallen for the theme for #1 Ride to Happiness now that I understand it. Sign me up for this Belgian music festival. There’s a wonderfully serene and other-worldly aura to the area, from the calm and soothing queueline soundtrack to our new robot friend here in the station who makes bold but reassuring statements to imminent riders about how their lives are about change forever.
And they are. This ridiculously slow inversion out of the station is the most comfortable and natural sensation ever, even if it has no right to be. The ability to take it at any angle and a variety of speeds makes it an instant classic. From there, you pause at the start of the launch track in a moment of nervous anticipation, sometimes spinning, sometimes not. How will this play out? You never know, it’s a surprise every time. The sudden burst of acceleration might initiate an intense spin, it might pin you sideways, forwards or backwards. You’re at the mercy of the machine now and the on-board soundtrack matches this change in dynamic perfectly.
The first element out of the launch is another that just conventionally shouldn’t work. A 90° turn in the midst of a 100ft top hat? Why not. If you’re in the front of the train, the airtime at the crest of the hill immediately tries to kill you before teasing you into a slow and inevitable vertical plummet. If you’re in the back it seems fine, we’re just turning and spinning a bit, up high, and then comes the terrifying drop that has you out of your seat at any angle for what feels like forever.
I can’t go on describing all the different combinations of what this ride can feel like and do to you because the spinning aspect makes it an endless list. Highlights for me into the banana roll and vertical loop combo were moments of intense positives that literally folded me in half around the lap bar while trying to implant my belt inside my stomach, leaving an ugly bruise. Sure, if you like. There’s a gloriously disorientating fourth inversion straight after that, out over the water, which is just one of those ‘coasters don’t get much better than this’ moments for me.
And yet you’re only half done. Mack’s strangely humped second launch makes a return appearance, giving a weirdly satisfying shot into the last inversion that defies description. Hangtime, sideways airtime, falling out of your seat… you name it, it can do it.
And just to seal the deal on the whole experience, some more epic ejector on the last few hills, any which way you like. This ride left me laughing and crying on the brake run every time, without fail, mask either over my eyes or around my neck There’s just so much to process and it never gets old. I love it.
There are other rides here, though you’d be forgiven for not knowing or caring at this point. The gap in quality is just ridiculous, as we soon reminded ourselves.
Nevertheless we started with a token lap on spiteful Heidi The Ride. It’s fine, I guess. Only been a year since we rode the Polish equivalent to death, so it all felt very familiar. Why did we let this thing cause so much fuss?
Anubis: The Ride is still here and I bet it’s feeling rather embarrassed and redundant right now. Just a sub-par launch coaster with inversions, not Eurofighter bad at least, but probably time to step aside.
We also managed to miss their dark ride last time. Bos van Plop is a brilliant little boat ride through a million different gnomes up to various tricks, complete with catchy soundtrack and bundles of charm.
Thus concludes our circuit of the park. We were here for Happiness and made it our mission to ride it as much as physically possible. The weather was ridiculously hot, the coaster is stupidly intense and we were struggling, but with regular rest and sustenance, we got it done.
I was having scary thoughts throughout the day about how much I like this thing. Each go would bring something new to the table, moments that I once thought were exclusive to certain other top ten coasters. Of the 16 laps we ended up with, honestly, there were a couple that weren’t as special, there is a degree of luck involved. But the majority were just something else and it simply can’t be beaten on that rerideability factor, nor the fact that it can blow your mind equally in any seat.
Every time I doubted myself, head in hands on the brakes, not knowing what to do with all these thoughts, we’d roll into the station and the robot woman would be there looking down on us, sometimes judging those feelings, sometimes affirming them, with those weird monocle cogs that rotate in and out of place. Once again I find It’s the little details that can endear you to a ride. Suddenly the return of the station soundtrack would stir up an overwhelming emotion that almost has me shaking, even now, as I merely think about it. Yes, this is the second best rollercoaster on the planet.
There’s a handful of Dutch parks we keep meaning to visit but, for whatever reason (including not being allowed in last year), they never quite happen. This was the day to change all that, for better or worse.
Day 18 – Duinrell
Duinrell lost out to Drievliet last time we were in the immediate vicinity, it couldn’t compete with just a trio of clones, but turns out it’s a lovely place.
We began on the brown one, #1 Kikkerachtbaan, a Zierer Tivoli Large with unusual concrete troughs and signature frog train.
Then rode the brown one, #2 Dragonfly, a highly competent Gerstlauer family coaster with an impressively senior ride op. If I work when I’m old, this is the gig for me.
Lastly it was the turn of the brown one, #3 Falcon, also known as Rage.
It didn’t quite pop as much as Rage, though it does look a lot nicer. Love the frog in the plane.
Beautiful park, but all too easy. Pro tip – parking is free if you manage to be in and out within an hour, which we did, in no hurry at all.
Hellendoorn
I was rather hoping that Hellendoorn would be in the same sort of league. It was not.
The stones on #4 Donderstenen amuse me, but it was in our first queue that we noticed a significant presence of school trips on park. Children in various hi-vis colours were persistently attempting to queue jump everyone and everything, clambering over railings and some rather grim temporary covid barriers that had been erected. It fell to one hero in the queue, a man trying to enjoy a day out with his son, to stand his ground and put a stop to this as the lone operator was simply unable to. Kids will be kids I guess, oh well.
We next joined the queue for Discovery Club, a dark ride I had been rather looking forward to. In complete contrast to the vague attempt at covid control on the last ride, this one auto batches you through a revolving metal gate to then leave you standing in an extremely cramped corridor and then narrow set of stairs, packed wall to wall with loud, screaming children, running up and down. There was a member of school staff here, though all they managed to do was actively encourage them to be as loud as possible by initiating various chants and rhythms through banging on the walls. This went on for at least 20 minutes, the line barely moving, while we were barely able to hear ourselves think, let alone have a conversation. Once again, a single member of staff on ride obviously had no time to intervene.
Putting all that aside for the briefest of moments, the ride was nice, one of those rarer interactive shooters with the rotating cars and seats facing outwards in 4 directions. There’s tons of little details and trinkets in the scenery, which is comprised of an endless collection of artifacts, though the movements of a certain few seem to be getting a little tired.
If we thought that was bad, try #5 Rioolrat. The covid barriers were back, though falling apart and interestingly held together by graffiti, driftwood and chewing gum. Yet more children were out in full force, literally shaking the barriers to pieces, banging on them, causing them to collapse onto other guests and frankly being quite dangerous. There was also a member of school staff here, sitting on a fence looking at his phone and making no attempt to stir up any peace. Yet again it fell to other paying guests who were visibly disgusted by the situation to make a vain attempt to control it. Yet again there was zero park staff presence, another automatic barrier forms the outdoor batch point and just one person operates the ride, deep inside the themed building.
This went on for a ridiculous amount of time, no less than 40 minutes for a queue of no more than 100 bodies and I don’t even know why. Once finally inside, you have to navigate some slippery stairs with a waterfall and some sewer tunnels with a very Raptor Attack vibe. It would have been quite cool but we were having one of the worst days at a theme park imaginable by this point.
The ride sucked, even for a Vekoma junior in the dark. I thought you were cool, Rioolrat.
We were so done with the park by this point. Just one more cred to bear, a stupid Vekoma looper, and then we can leave, never to return. Walked over to it. It was closed. Goodbye.
I know school trips aren’t a park specific or specific park problem, but I feel an establishment like this should at least be prepared for the situation by having a little more staff presence at critical points such as the queue lines of their two major operating attractions. Failing that, there is a practice within the industry to publicly advertise on your website calendar as to which days are due to have school trips, allowing guests to factor this into their decision on when to visit. We certainly weren’t alone in feeling unable to even enjoy the day here, every other family or group of adults were clearly not having a good day time and I feel more sorry for them – park visits are two a penny to me, but can obviously mean a lot to others.
In all fairness to the park, they have since admitted fault and invited us back next year. They had the cheek (or at least their automated system did) to send us a survey asking ‘how was your visit?🙃’ the very next day. We responded of course in an honest and constructive (as per the above), but sometimes brutal manner. Fast forward a few weeks and the eventual reply stated that they completely agreed with absolutely everything we said, it was a massive issue for them and they were making plans to do something about it.
Couldn’t end it on that note though.
De Waarbeek
Things couldn’t be more different here as we became one of only a handful of cars in the car park for their last hour of operation.
Back to tranquil, forest parks with not an ugly barrier, or guest, in sight.
Their star attraction of course is old #6 Rodelbaan, claiming to be the oldest steel coaster in the world (though RCDB appears to believe otherwise). They even let us know that fact before pushing the despatch button. It’s definitely good for its age, a fun little ground hugging layout that loves to interact with all the surroundings and has a few satisfying humps up its sleeve.
They’ve also managed to keep hold of a bonus travelling cred for an extra season, #7 Gold Mine Express, a ride that was once Mini-Lynet at Fårup Sommerland. Actually it goes one better than that. It was Lynet, until they built Lynet.
Regardless, +2. Another great little park that was an overwhelmingly positive experience to end the day on.
