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.
I can never seem to escape this park, even though I’m far from the biggest fan. Last year was brutally bad timing as we missed the long awaited opening of F.L.Y. by a mere couple of weeks. Obviously that had to be rectified and so here we go again, ready to ride yet another Vekoma multi-launch that I was once hugely excited for, though feelings had since faded into obscurity.
Headed straight to Rookburgh to see what all the fuss had been about over the years. It’s quite the spectacle, I’ll give it that, and I like the way the area feels so far removed from the rest of the park as if it’s a little pocket world of its own. Walls were worth it. Walking through the queue goes on for an age, but provides plenty of opportunity to have a good watch of everything going on around the place.
We reached the instructional batching point amongst the first guests of the day, but then proceeded to get stuck here, watching the video over and over again for what felt like a long time. The ride was already playing up and having some technical delays. I assume this robot bloke is/was meant to do something, though he appeared to also be broken. The video explains the immensely complicated boarding procedure which is, I suppose intentionally, rather like boarding a flight. You receive a magic wristband from a member of staff and then proceed to a bank of lockers, selecting any one you want. Once all your goods are stowed, absolutely all of them, the band will lock it for you by touch and then of course become registered exclusively to that number until the end of the ride. It’s now time to pass through the metal detectors and staff with scanners to check you haven’t been naughty and tried to sneak a cheeky picture of the station to sell to Golden Horse. The station queue splits off into two, with what was originally intended to be colour coded entrances based on the wristband you received, I believe for single riders and such. These are covid times however, so everyone gets blue anyway and they just filter from both alternately.
It’s a nice station, full of bubbling pipes and mood lighting. I particularly like the way the trains come in at pace, there’s an efficient, almost public transport feel to it which is again what I guess they were going for.
Having not followed anything about #1 F.L.Y. too closely, the trains themselves were rather impressive to behold. I couldn’t quite believe what I was seeing as they came in sideways, seats mounted upright at 90° in sets of two. They’re massively long, nice and easy to get in to, the little one way leg flaps are rather genius and it’s all actually rather comfortable I found. The trains despatch to much waving from the staff and continue in their weird sideways motion through an indoor section that contains a number of themed adverts for wacky inventions and then a large scene of a bustling airship dock(?) on screens. As you round the corner from there and head outside, the seats elegantly swivel round to the right as the track twists from behind you, to overhead, and the launch track awaits.
The pause at this point is a little awkward, I feel like the ride could have benefited from a rolling first launch to keep the excitement going after the swelling of the music and the accompanying scene. Nevertheless you’re off, zooming around the area through a million different twists and turns. It’s somewhat of a sensory overload even after multiple goes, helped along by a few bonus water and smoke effects. Inherently though, the riding position doesn’t lend itself terribly well into taking all of that in, it’s hard to focus on any of the stunning visuals when you’re looking towards the floor as it blurs past. Out of interest I also tried looking forward instead, for the duration of a front row lap, and it ended up being rather uncomfortable on the neck.
But is the actual ride any good? Kinda. There are some highlights in the latter half, as soon as that second launch hits and shoots you up here, there’s a surprising tug of acceleration followed by a bit of near-exclusive ‘airtime on a flying coaster’, though these are both only really felt towards the front. The following section is punctuated by some more highly unusual but satisfying lurching floaty moments, but those were the only real takeaway for me. The rest of the ride is rather repetitive and bland, much like the uninspired swooping turns and endless inline twists of lesser rival B&Ms, only highly exaggerated and then nicely decorated. Again I’m sure that hit the directive for this attraction, it’s just not something that keeps me coming back for more. F.L.Y. is a fantastically fun themed experience with some fascinating new technology that’s simply joyous to behold, it simply doesn’t do the things I personally like flying coasters to do, namely crush your soul with ridiculous inversions.
Now that we had the measure of that, we found ourselves token lapping the rest of the park yet again. Mice were shot with chocolate on Maus au Chocolat.
Winjas were feared. Finally got the better side of these two again, after many years of trying. Interestingly the queue for the rides has temporarily been moved to outside of the building, instead entering through a theatre door and skipping the usually rather grim indoor maze section.
Crazy Bats weren’t seen. The indoor coaster still isn’t running with virtual headsets, thankfully.
Feet were ripped off on Black Mamba.
Colorado Adventure was ruined again, by unnecessary assigned seating on a half-empty train. Back row for life.
Oh and Taron. Taron was kicking ass, moreso than usual. I’m not sure what went on but it was running almost too well. The queue wasn’t unbearable and we got more laps than ever before. There were snaps I hadn’t felt for a long time, those one-and-a-half airtime moments were delivering and there were random bursts of positives I don’t remember existing. I was making a point to readjust my mask during the trims at the end, for comedic effect, but even they were providing some unprecedented floatiness and then the final turn would instantly and aggressively whip it down my face again. Every time. The creature is clearly asserting some dominance over the new kid in town. And rightfully so.
We had a great day once again, it’s always easy to fill the time with the undeniably strong and varied attraction lineup of Phantasialand. No water rides this time sadly as Chiapas likes to ruin shoes and River Quest was clearly having capacity issues – barely any boats running and a 90 minute queue all day, with F.L.Y. at 45 and nothing else over 20. Every time I visit this park now it grows on me and the negative experiences fade further into the past. But they are what gives the place character, so I think I’d better slow down.
Though it was of course entirely worth it, that later night at Energylandia didn’t end up doing us any favours. After all the previous traffic tragedies, Poland really took things to another level by leaving us stuck at the tail end of a motorway accident until 3am as we attempted to make headway to the German border, in a queue so bad that even the recovery truck couldn’t get through due to poor ‘parking’, people leaving their cars and/or falling asleep at the wheel.
Day 16 – Erlebniswelt Seilbahnen Thale
The original plan of an early start the next day was of course abandoned after that travesty and so we needed to settle on a much more relaxed itinerary to accompany the crossing of Germany. This resulted in visiting just one humble collection of Wiegand equipment, set of course against a wonderful backdrop.
The town of Thale is situated in a part of Germany that has a strong association with witches and other fun devilment.
They have some big mountains, devils on benches, senior citizens yodelling
and of course rides. All of the equipment here is self-operated in true German fashion, you can load up a card with points at a ticket desk and use it as contactless payment to trigger the despatch of any ride at the push of a button.
#1 Boderitt is one of Wiegand’s rarer Mystical Hex models, in this case with cool looking cauldron cars. For being such an open vehicle it was rather scary in the backwards facing seat as it swung rather enthusiastically from side to side and left me unable to prepare myself for anything. Backwards is good.
The place is also home to their prototype suspended design and first of their rides to be called #2 Hexenbesen or ‘witches broom’, of course in homage to the region. It’s a wacky contraption that involves solo riders laying on a crash mat inside a tube, again pushing the dispatch button yourself and ‘flying’ your way down to the bottom of the layout.
Where you unceremoniously have to slide out backwards and clear the area before the car can take itself back up the lift hill. Fascinating, and great fun.
Away from all that are the cable cars with alternate bonus glass floors that are scratched and pointless.
They take you up to the top of the mountain to find one more piece of Wiegand wares.
And more witches.
Getting back on the old dual rail style felt like a bit of a downgrade after recent experiences. #3 Harzbob is also a bit of a short and unremarkable version of the hardware, but it’s all part of the adventure. Also helped that it was open.
That’s pretty much it for yet another transit day. Germany became the latest in a long line of countries that didn’t really want us to get anywhere in any hurry and, having crossed the entire width of the country, it was time to make camp in a particularly populous region of theme parks, old and new.
One year on, the pull of Poland, or more specifically Energylandia, is still strong. Two new creds and another opportunity to experience Europe’s best one-two punch was all the persuading we needed to pop in again while in the area.
Day 15 – Energylandia
Of course it wasn’t just any old two creds. One of them is multi-launch sensation Abyssus, a coaster that I was once super excited by, though time, delays and riding most of the other recent Vekomas had caused those feelings to fade somewhat.
We headed straight to the back of the park for it, on a walk that manages to be even more exhausting than ever. The chocolate mine train thing that they’re building appears to be cutting off what will eventually be a quicker access route to the new Aqualantis area, so for now it’s a walk to Zadra… and then some. It’s no mean feat for first thing in the morning, particularly if you’re parked on the awful stoney car park right out in the corn fields. Luckily this meant basically no one had arrived yet, in a case of what I like to call Forbidden Valley syndrome, so our morning laps were mostly queueless.
So, how was #1 Abyssus? It begins with one of those awkward clicky launches that don’t quite sit right with me. I forget what other ride(s) do(es) it, but it definitely doesn’t happen on better coasters with LSMs. It’s sudden, but subtle, a very quick transition from nothing to everything as if to get over that initial inertia, before instantly dialling it back to a gradual ramping of acceleration. If you’re not doing ‘heads back, face forward, hold on tight and brace yourself’ it’ll tap you in the back of the head for it, just enough to be bothersome, but it won’t then keep it there with any force. I’m probably not describing it right but it feels unrefined and meh.
A mild twisty section follows, interspersed with a couple of promising airtime hill teasers. It’s quite a short section of track before hitting the second launch running. I always love a good rolling launch, though I’m not sure the satisfaction of it extending the ride time is quite there when you haven’t really done anything notable or special so far.
That propels you up into this turnaround top hat thing which is rather unremarkable upon entry and then (in the back at least) gives a weird sensation of ‘trying to eject you’ *pause* ‘trying to eject you again’ thanks to the silly trim brake.
The vertical loopings is up next, which gives that not-so-great bland sustain feeling from the likes of Lech, before hitting the highlight moment in the form of this strong hill towards the station, much like Lech. It’s well framed too of course, I can’t knock the aesthetics.
Ducking under the station leads into the Batwing. It might just be a weird ‘feeling I get’, but this to me is like 21st century Arrow coaster territory. Yes, we’re inverting, but why?
Things get a bit more varied after that, as it begins to rather elegantly bounce between the twists and turns and airtime hills that go on to give quite a lengthy and satisfying ride experience, leaning at last on one of the strengths I find in a multi-launch where I sometimes catch myself thinking ‘oh yes, we’re not done yet.’
The corkscrew’s rather decent. Some of these later moments deliver far better than others though, and not necessarily in a good way. It tries to do one of those funky sideways hills to keep up with the cool kids, like they did on the Space Warp models, but it’s really just a visual and doesn’t do much of anything. The train seems to run out of steam in the final few seconds as well, which I find further throws the pacing off. We had to be trimmed earlier to stop us greying out and now there’s not quite enough gas in the tank to end on a high.
I’m still not entirely sure how to feel about all that, it’s a very conflicting ride for me. Aside from all the negativity I managed to bring out in that blow by blow, some of which is simply annoying me even more as I type it, I actually liked Abyssus far more than I had (eventually) expected to. It’s no gamechanger, it’s not spectacular by any means and yet it’s still really good fun.
It’s not like anything else in this particular market and I think that appeals to the side of me that still loves to try new things that break the mould a bit. That doesn’t mean that what they’ve achieved is necessarily for the better, but they’ve developed their own style that is distinguishable from the competition and that is at the very least satisfying and refreshing to experience. I can also see why that has turned into what I believe is a somewhat misplaced fascination with what Vekoma are doing right now. For me this is their best work yet and I can’t even see why it wouldn’t make the sacred top 10%, but that doesn’t stop me picking a hundred holes in it.
Enough waffle, there’s another coaster to be had.
#2 Light Explorers, the park’s second junior boomerang and sixth or seventh Vekoma has a more linear layout to contrast the original. It’s all rather nicely decorated and set over this watery landscape. I do dig the Atlantis vibe they’ve got going on, though it’s clearly not finished yet and there seem to be still quite a few placeholders for things left to do. It’s nice that each of the new areas give off an aesthetic that can’t really be found in the bulk of the main park.
Something is calling to us in the distance though. With everything new out of the way it was back to Energylandia basics. Once you’ve trimmed away all the fat there’s nothing left to do but see the day out by bouncing between Zadra and Hyperion.
We began on the former, which is still a ridiculous thing of epic magnitude and instantly casts aside any doubt of what an actual top tier coaster rides like, just in case Vekoma had you doubting yourself for a minute in the midst of your filler-filled two-week coaster marathon. The first drop was better than I remember. The massive airtime hill was slightly worse than I remember. Perfectly balanced as all things should be and Zadra remains exactly where it was in my mind.
Hyperion still had a hilarious vibration to it in my personal favourite seats (outside back row). For me this only adds to the experience, spicing up those moments like the return hill that just don’t quite hit the mark amongst an otherwise outstanding coaster. Character. It may as well be a woodie at this point.
Somehow across a two day visit last time we never found the time to queue what seems to be a perpetual 20 minutes for the dark ride here. Now it’s supposed to be one of my things I do, there was no excuse, though it still felt like time not well spent in those switchbacks. And the feelings are justified; Monster House is a pretty awful ghost train with zero atmosphere. The lighting, the audio, the alien things just don’t add up to a cohesive experience. Hasn’t this already been revamped as well?
The park had been decently busy all day, almost to the point of unpleasantness in certain areas like the Zadra zone, what with Oktoberfest going on, and there being lots of extra food and drink stalls crammed in. There were far too many bodies at certain times of day, but this was rewarded with a park-wide announcement of an extension to the opening hours from 6pm to 8pm. Can’t argue with that.
It all turned into a bit of a game at the end of the evening, trying to maximise opportunity, minimise queues and get the optimum number of laps on each of the big boys to then end the day with an Abyssus pseudo-night ride that had previously not even been an option. There’s always some worry as the day draws to a close at Energylandia, they do have an over-eagerness to add and remove trains on rides as and when the queue times fluctuate, constantly chasing their tails a bit and when you’re waiting at least half an hour a pop it can easily cost you a precious lap or two.
Everything ran almost too perfectly though. Hyperion got stupidly busy as soon as we left it, Zadra clung on to those two train ops until just after we departed and the night ended by running like idiots to Abyssus, hoping they wouldn’t shut the queue early in order to ‘clear the area.’ They didn’t, in fact we ended up on it twice in the dark as almost no one else in the park appeared to want to commit to ending the day so far from the main entrance. It wasn’t a patch on the other night rides available here, but it was still pretty damn special.
Well now, I’ve gone and surprised myself by managing to make it to the end without ever uttering the words vest restraints.
