It’s a long drive from Gothenburg to Kolmården and it felt all the longer when what we called ‘the main road to Stockholm’ became single track lanes through dense forests. With no confirmation either way from the park about whether they had fixed the issues with thier new ride yet, we were continuing the trend of the trip and taking it easy, 50:50 on whether we might just be wasting our time at this point.
As we approached the particularly beautiful and scenic part of the country that houses a hidden zoo and RMC, we saw several signs which seemed to indicate there had been either low level protests or strong showings of support to the construction of the ride. Hay bales and paint on trees spelled out the name. This amused us.
What didn’t amuse us, after finally reaching the car park, paying for parking and walking to the entrance was hearing the staff break the bad news – Wildfire was not open yet and wouldn’t be for another week. As we now knew we would HAVE to come back another time, the obvious choice was to walk away, not use the pre-paid tickets already ordered online, get back in the car and drive to Stockholm to buy some cheese.
I’m certainly no stranger to spite in this hobby, but this was by far the biggest blow I had ever experienced. Don’t get me wrong, I was having a great time on this fantastic trip, but my primary goal of the whole week was to ride this thing and it didn’t happen. What hurt a little more was the conviction with which the park had advertised the opening of the ride and unusually for me (I rarely care about anything before it’s built) I had been hanging on their every word. During construction, Wildfire had a massively detailed documentary series put out by Kolmården every few days showing every step of the build. They released cinematic trailers of grizzly men battling hard against all odds to piece the wood together, covered in sweat, mud and rain. Fires raging through forests – Wildfire… is… free… One particular video that stood out was the park manager himself declaring ‘I’ve just walked the track of the completed ride and it WILL open on the 18th June. Steal a car, buy a boat, hire a plane – do what you MUST to come and ride the greatest wooden rollercoaster in the world.’ This quickly became a great source of parody for us as we had done exactly that, and it was closed.
Day 5 – Gröna Lund
We dropped the car off in the centre of Stockholm the following morning, at the smallest hire premises imaginable. They had a single space outside in which to park and no one was making it easy for me – road works on all sides, two men carrying a pane of glass like a comedy sketch and cyclists getting angry at me merely for existing. From there it was a short tram ride to the final park of the trip.
I started off the day really happy. All these coasters crammed together into such a tight space – it’s ride interaction heaven here, right up my street. Sweden have it so good. Or do they?
I loved the look of this ride, a classic Schwarzkopf diving in and out of the tracks of 3 other creds. Riding its big brother Lisebergbanan on the same trip made it seem rather underwhelming on the whole though. Moments that look strong from offride only do so from certain angles – you get up close and it all feels a bit tamed down. It was fun, but nothing special.
As was my first Gravity woodie. The restraints were slightly off on this, coming in almost over the chest meaning what airtime it had was mostly eliminated by having to brace my rib cage. Whether it’s the wheels or the steel supports, having to queue inside such a tight structure is loud to the point of obnoxiousness and it also gave me a headache both on and offride.
The positives – I really do admire how long this ride feels to go on for, given the size. With less than 50ft of drop to begin with it just keeps on finding things to do. It also has an exhibition of other wooden coasters from around the world throughout the queueline. If you could shut the noise out, recognising and reading about these was great fun.
The Gerstlauer bobsled is another of the intertwiners here, though my time on it never seemed to capitalise on any exciting interaction. As a model they have their odd moment of success, but most of the way it’s a glorified wild mouse.
No more than a few weeks prior, I had ridden the brand new installation of this same Vekoma SFC layout at Paultons Park. Being older and seemingly not that well looked after, this version paled in comparison.
Even if Twister hadn’t given me a headache, this abomination would have. The Intamin zacspin is an evil invention, the seats can flip freely as the cars negotiate the horribly lurchy layout. Pitching head over heels and being dropped onto your brain in sudden bursts of random force is unpleasant at best, damaging at worst. I dread the fact that more of these exist and that I need the creds.
Talking of creds, there were two more baby ones to tick off. Nyckelpigan – a small Zierer Tivoli with a fun name to say and Tuff-Tuff Tåget – a Zamperla that barely qualifies as a coaster. If you’re at all worried about the embarassment of riding children’s rides as an adult, it’s tough tough to get. Yeah, that one’s fun to say too.
BlåTåget is a traditional ghost train with some bonus modern features in the refurbished cars. I can appreciate that it was a good example of the genre, but the ride hasn’t left a lasting impression on me.
Gröna Lund has almost as many towers as it does coasters. We did both of these. Fritt Fall on the left is a huge Intamin drop tower that packed a massive punch over a long period of time – one of the best of its kind. Eclipse on the right is an even huger Wave Swinger, once the tallest in the world. If chairoplanes don’t scare you any more, getting on a 400ft version just might. I wasn’t nervous until I looked up and considered how thin the chains look. It sure is windy up there, buffeting all over the place.
I was a little disappointed with the park on the whole. That initial buzz of excitement I had was soon washed away in a sea of middling rides and noisy guests. It didn’t have the charm of the rest of the country – something just didn’t click with me and there’s nothing outstanding enough to make me want to return for another attempt. As it was only ever getting busier and louder as the day wore on, with a concert being set up for the evening, we didn’t feel like queueing longer for anything again so headed out a little earlier than anticipated for some food and a relaxed train to the airport.
This trip followed much of the same route I had taken 1 year prior, with the added extension of a one way car hire and driving over to Stockholm. The main draw for me (aside from revisiting Liseberg and Helix) was the planned opening of Wildfire at Kolmården – Europe’s first RMC.
Day 1
In what was to be a very long first day, we arrived in Copenhagen and headed straight to Tivoli Gardens. After finding somewhere to store luggage we took a quick lap of the park ticking off all the major attractions, to be safe, before jumping on another train to Bakken.
Bakken was much as I remembered it from before, with slightly less rain. The atmosphere isn’t great, always having lots of old people in restaurants staring at you, seemingly judging you for being young and having a good time. The rides aren’t very good either, though Tornado is a unique Intamin spinner, the standout is an unassuming mine train.
Tivoli couldn’t be more different – a gorgeous park with a lovely atmosphere and two worthy coasters that I could just bounce off all day (Daemonen and the correct Rutschebanan). We returned for a wonderful evening of rides and some extra magic happens at night when the place lights up. You just can’t go wrong here.
As midnight approached, we still needed to lug our luggage back out of the park and board a train bound for Malmö, over the border in Sweden. The process had changed slightly since my last visit and there were extra checks for border control, so we were barely managing to stay upright by the time we reached the hotel.
Day 2
Scandinavia knows how to look after us though. Late park closures also mean late park openings so we still had more than enough sleep. We had heard that Kolmården were having some troubles with their new ride and that it hadn’t actually opened yet. This was concerning, and we spent the rest of the morning doing some digging. The website wasn’t much help – stay tuned for more details, or words to that effect. Never mind, Liseberg.
Took the satisfyingly casual drive up to Gothenburg, parked at the perfect hotel and jumped on a tram to my favourite park in the world. Helix reaffirmed that to me that it was still the best and Mega-Lite got a new favourite, that’s all that matters. The best nights in the industry are found at Liseberg.
Day 3 – Skara Sommarland
As Liseberg is so easy and demands 2 evenings of your life, minimum, for any visit, there was an abundance of time to check out another few creds a couple of hours to the north east. So as we begin to question whether this report is actually going somewhere, here’s a new park for you.
Just when I think things can’t get more relaxed, this place is more summer camp than theme park, with friendly staff just cycling around without a care in the world.
#1 Tranan
The main draw here is a unique S&S Free Fly. It has a winged train with cars on each side that can pivot and swing horizontally as it traverses a somewhat uneventful layout. Don’t be fooled though, even a normal looking piece of track can cause this ride to provide some surprising sensations. If they ever try to step one of these up a notch, I’ll be all over it. For now, as it stands – a bit of fun, nothing more.
Something less fun is the park’s stock model Maurer spinner, #2 Spinner. The standard wild mouse layout just doesn’t seem to suit these usually superior spinning cars very well, resulting in a rough and awkward ride.
#3 Gruvbanan
Last up is a Mack powered coaster. From a spectators perspective, you would think the layout consisted of straight flat lines, but there’s a big helix through a weird and wonderful warehouse with a completely random assortment of objects (theming?), providing plenty of charm.
With that mission declared a success, it was back to Gothenburg for life changing experiences.
Walibi Holland are slightly off the rails, in a good way. Let’s just say the park themselves know how to have a good time. I can’t think of a better investment to represent that than this. Hard Gaan.
Lost Gravity was the first ever installation of a Mack big dipper. I’m a massive fan of Mack rides, not least because they made my favourite coaster on the planet. Their restraint and seating system revolutionised the modern inverting coaster giving an unparalleled sense of freedom and comfort even against the most extreme of forces, teaching the world once again that you don’t need these poxy shoulder restraints everywhere.
These same seats made it onto this new model of ride, on which the easiest comparison to draw for the cars would be to a Gerstlauer Eurofighter. In a head to head, they fix absolutely everything about them, from the awkward restraints to the clunkiness with which they rattle around. On top of this, the outside 4 positions can be described as wing seats, as they stick out over both the edge of the car floor and the actual track, letting your feet dangle. Wing seats like this can be a powerful ally to a ride, effectively doubling any lateral forces in a snappy transition as physics has to move you, the rider, further to keep up. The advantage of single 8-seater cars on a coaster such as this, as opposed to full trains is that tighter (and snappier) manouevres can be attempted without (less) serious engineering issues.
The theme for the ride is in the name. Gravity has been lost and the scenery throughout the queue and the ride area is a random assortment of objects, vehicles and containers that are upside down and strewn all over the place. The entertainment highlight as you move through the queue is an escalator that no longer moves. Instead, if you happen to be standing on it while waiting, the floor intermittently vibrates underneath you, in a hilarious fashion. There’s always some intense dance music playing throughout the area, fitting perfectly with the vibe of the park and I believe there was a dedicated DJ situated near the ride entrance at some point.
The ride does have a song written for it and it’s one that I have a great attachment to, though sadly I’ve never heard this played in situ. The other highlights in theming are a couple of flamethrowers that go off viciously every so often, enough to give people in the queue a good fright. You can’t beat a bit of fire.
On to the actual ride then, it begins with a wickedly steep and twisted first drop that just disappears from underneath you, throwing you particularly hard if you’re in the correct wing seat. Before you’ve had time to recover from that there’s a silly little hill, no more than the size of a speed bump, which produces a very amusing and odd sensation of airtime.
Nobody should know what this element is supposed to be. Some semblance of a top hat, but the shape is just so warped and again produces some rather unique forces, although slower this time, before you hit another big violent hill of pure ejector.
The train then enters a flat turnaround up high, ending in a mid course brake run which tugs at the pace a little into the dive drop that marks the second half of the ride.
The ride gets more twisty now, navigating a series of tight corners, another well placed inversion and a final punch of airtime before the end.
I was very happy with the final product. I like a mixed bag of forces on a ride and I always implore designers to try new things, be different and unique. It did everything I could have asked for really and instantly became my favourite attraction in the park. Although Goliath was an old friend of mine it just can’t compete with the simplicity of what it delivers in comparison to a ride like Lost Gravity.
What holds it back from the elite though? Because it isn’t up there with the best of the best for me. That’s a question I find hard to answer. I believe it comes back to the Eurofighter comparison from earlier. Though Mack fixed everything I thought they could about it, there’s something more inherent about these rides with single cars instead of trains. What you gain in manoeuvrability you lose in grace, they just don’t… flow as nicely. The momentum and rhythm is different, much more stop-start and, for want of a better word, it feels gimmicky.
Still loved it anyway, bought the T-shirt to prove it. Not the one that says ‘Ask me about Lost Gravity’, but please do.
On my first trip to Efteling, this ride was nearing the final stages of being built. They certainly weren’t afraid to show it off to everyone and get them excited for what was coming to the park – not a construction fence in sight.
It excited me too, though I wasn’t a local. This was a time in my life when B&M were the most consistent manufacturer I had come across and from what I had already experienced that day, I was sure Efteling could produce something really special.
A couple of years later I was back in the Netherlands and of course took the opportunity to see how things had turned out, soon finding myself standing in the queue that was once mud.
The area that the ride lives in is wonderfully presented and fits right in with the overwhelming aesthetic and charm of the park. Drawing strongly on their experience with Vliegande Hollander, theming becomes the most dominating part of the attraction and Baron takes it a step further by even having it’s own preshow – something very few coasters do. This is also a good time to mention that there was an extensive soundtrack composed for the ride, which I always admire, but in this particular instance none of the melodies have ever really stuck with me, unlike certain attractions.
In Efteling style, the preshow tells a tale of the Baron himself, the opening of his gold mine and the Witte Wieven that haunts it. Now the scene has been set, guests move into the station to board the Dive Coaster trains which are to be your mine cars. You’re now a part of the story.
The train pulls out of the station into another room, where impressive projections and physical effects continue the story. Trouble is afoot, the ride can begin. It’s hard for me to feel intimidated now in these comfy B&M seats as they ascend the lift hill. At the summit, the signature holding brake of the ride type dangles you over a misty pit.
The train releases and you plummet down the near vertical drop into the ground below. Baron is comparatively tiny for a dive coaster, not quite reaching 100ft off the floor and it shows here in that the defining moment of the ride is not as effective at launching you out of your seat or providing the sustained sense of freefall that I would have expected. The pull out of the drop is almost instantaneous.
With your face full of sweet mist, the ride navigates two consecutive inversions that are pulled off rather nicely, before entering a helix that seemingly serves no real purpose other than to burn a bit of speed. Moments like this in a layout do bother me as, with my mindset, it just feels like wasted potential.
The final element is a slight airtime hill that is somewhat satisfying and you hit the brakes far sooner than expected.
While solid fun as a coaster, there was nothing truly spectacular about it. The theming remains the most prevalent feature of the experience, which I’m fine with, but it could have been something really special if the hardware had lived up to it. I can only assume they were erring on the side of family thrill to suit the park as a whole, which makes the choice of ride type seem a little unusual – other than for the look and to fit the narrative. Dive coasters by original design were to be dominating, powerful and scary, the prototype literally being themed to fear. It’s refreshing to see one used in a different way, but it didn’t quite meet my expectations on all fronts.
This was a revisit to the park for me and a first time visit for Mega-Lite. Although I already adored the place, the most persuasive factor in my returning was their new coaster Baron 1898, of which you can find a review here. We had an amazing time and the park was as lovely as ever.
The next day didn’t go very well and I have only one picture to prove it ever happened. For some reason we decided to hit both of these parks in one day, to maximise our time and I assume because we thought neither lineup was particularly significant enough to warrant sticking around.
We crossed another easy border out of our centralised hub in the Netherlands and into Belgium for the day.
Day 4 – Walibi Belgium
We opted to head for the park’s new coaster to begin with, Pulsar, the first ever installation of a Mack powersplash. It’s a shuttle ride using their larger water coaster boats to power you both forwards and backwards up spikes of track before cleverly letting the water that surrounds the ride flood directly in front of the boat to produce a massive splashdown effect at the end. The queue was particularly interesting as we raced through it, with many of the actual walls having violently pulsing and vibrating sections to denote the theme. It wasn’t the most thrilling of rides, the size of boat makes it all a rather lumbering experience, but it was rather fun to try and we got absolutely soaked for the privilege.
There’s another shuttle coaster nearby called Psyke Underground. This time it’s a Schwarzkopf shuttle loop, with the added features of being entirely indoors and having replacement Gerstlauer trains fitted. It consists of launch, loop, spike, backwards loop, spike, end and simply wasn’t very interesting.
Calamity Mine is a standard layout Vekoma mine train that was worryingly better than Colorado Adventure earlier in the trip. With more than one train running, the two lift hills side by side and interaction of track between the two halves of the layout makes for good entertainment.
Cocinelle is a great name for the British to say and a small Zierer Tivoli. +1.
We were now at the back of the park where the shooting dark ride, Challenge of Tutankhamon sits. Excitement had built for this one as it was meant to be rather good and it didn’t disappoint. Navigating through various haunted Egyptian scenes, shooting as you go, the ride provides a number of either effective or amusing scares by use of animatronics. It also has the intelligence to split cars off and take them through different end sequences based on your score. Because of this, and how good it was, this was the only attraction here we did twice, though we failed to score too well both times and got the same ending.
The other dark ride is a Vekoma mad house. Le Palais du Génie had an interesting preshow, with guests gathering round a central area of the room and some trickery on the ceiling. The ride portion was par for the course on these attractions, the highlight often being other riders reactions to believing that you are genuinely going upside down.
Even though we still had a lot to cover for the day, we had been putting off the major coasters at the front of the park, the main reason being that one was a Vekoma SLC and another was a Vekoma boomerang, both prolific clones in the theme park world that I’m not sure anyone has ever enjoyed rather than endured.
Realising that time was now against us, and that they were all holding significant queues, we purchased a single fasttrack for each – a horrible thought to be paying extra for such rides.
Vampire is the SLC, where we were immediately let in through a secret back door into the station. It wasn’t the worst version I’ve ridden, but it wasn’t good either.
Cobra is the boomerang, where we stood in confusion at the exit for a while before being let on. It wasn’t the worst version I’ve ridden, but it wasn’t good either.
Finally it was time to try Loup-Garou, hoping for something better from the park’s Vekoma woodie. At least it was unique. Unfortunately I didn’t get on with the positioning of the awkward lap bar restraints very well and spent the duration of the ride bracing myself against that rather than taking in any of the layout. I believe it had the potential to be quite good, it just wasn’t for me with those trains.
With that, the park was complete and we hurried out to the next destination.
Bobbejaanland
Our master plan was relying on the advertised operating hours of this park, it was due to close at 18:00 but on our arrival at the ticket desk, even though the car park was heaving, we had struggled to even find a space and it was still the school holidays in Belgium, they bluntly told us they were shutting at 17:00. Being madmen, we reckoned we could still manage everything in the remaining time and bought tickets anyway – we’ve come this far.
We started at Typhoon, the biggest coaster in the park, an older Gerstlauer Eurofighter. It’s an unattractive ride, looking more like it belongs at a fairground than a theme park, but then Bobbejaanland had been unattractive thus far as well. It fits. The queue was unpleasant and barely moving, we lost our first half hour here. The signature vertical lift and beyond vertical drop starts the ride, throwing you into a vertical loop where you immediately to notice that these trains are clunky and ride poorly. Some strangely high up turns and slow inversions go against the grain of what I have experienced previously on the ride type so it’s an unusual layout at least, but not really any good for it.
For some reason the only ride I have a picture of for this day is Dizz, perhaps in false hope that this Maurer spinner would be any good. It wasn’t. Another slow half hour queue for a ride that barely gained any speed throughout the uninspired layout and therefore didn’t really spin either.
With time slipping away from us, we had to get a bit tactical, bypassing the wild mouse which, if we did fail to ride everything, we would be the least bothered about missing. We also skipped past the indoor coaster which had a new Virtual Reality overlay advertised, knowing that the VR plague always destroys the throughput of any coaster it touches.
Which led us to the back of the park and Dream Catcher, a Vekoma suspended coaster. Like Dizz, it had a grim half hour queue and like Dizz, it barely gained any speed throughout the uninspired layout and therefore didn’t really swing either.
Oki Doki was, concerningly, the best ride in the park. I also declared it the best coaster in Belgium, which was ridiculous but also true at the time. The custom layout Vekoma junior had a fun first drop in the back and little else to offer.
We now decided to backtrack to the rides we had skipped earlier, starting with the indoor coaster. While walking through the queue, a ton of guests came pouring out of the ride towards us, having being kicked out, loudly shouting and making X symbols with their arms. It’s closed then… what’s the time? 16:30.
How about the wild mouse then? As we reached the entrance, the gate was being shut and a sign hung in front of it. Closed. As well as cutting short the opening hours for the day, they were also shutting half the park early while it was still really busy. Why?
Defeated, we aimlessly wandered onto something that was still open nearby, a King Kong flat ride. It’s an amusing ride, with a large angry ape picking you up in a bus, shouting and tipping you from side to side sedately, but it didn’t particularly raise our spirits at this time. Though we had played our part to the best of our ability, Bobbejaanland had let us down.
As a slight bonus, though we had written it off, the park’s powered coaster Bob Express was still open until 17:00, not 18:00, so we took our final and uneventful +1 for the day.
Having not liked the place anyway, the most annoying part was the thought that I would have to come back one day and finish it.
The final day consisted of another revisit for me, this time spurred on by the opening of Lost Gravity – review here. This really was a good year for new rides and they proved to be the driving force for a cracking trip overall.
There’s an unavoidable sense of awe around this Intamin multi launch coaster, particularly if you enter it from the direction at which you can look down on most of it from above. Taron has the most ‘crossing points’ of it’s own track over itself, on any coaster in the world. I could stand and look at it for hours. How they fit all of this ride into one of the most immersively constructed lands out there defies belief.
Because you can just enter Klugheim as if it existed first, the section of Phantasialand that it is located in. It’s like a small viking town with shops, a bar and a cafe. All the while this dominating presence of a rollercoaster is just there, seemlessly integrated with it. And it’s not just the visuals. The noise that the launches on the ride make echo throughout the area with an almost vicious anger and it’s deeply satisfying to hear, even more so once you’ve experienced the ride.
That’s why we’re here though right? The ride. It’s amazing. I have to admit though, I find it hard to comprehend and quantify the experience, so bear with me. The trains are new ground for Intamin, in a way they emulate the Mack launch coaster, with a comfy lap restraint that comes in over your head, slightly raised seating that leaves most people’s feet dangling, though still with a floor beneath them and most importantly – a very open sensation, lots of room for the top half of your body to move around with relative freedom. This sensation is important, because of what Taron relies most upon.
Once you’re on board, the train pulls out of the station and onto the first launch track, teases you for a second and then fires away with a quick burst of speed into a sharp corner around some rockwork. There’s a lot of those.
From here, it’s the transitions that make up the majority of the ride experience. In the way that the track twists and turns around itself, more often than not the direction changes are very sharp and this is what provides the force of the ride. The near misses with the scenery can have you independently ducking and diving as much as the train.
The second launch is potentially my favourite moment on any coaster. The way the ride violently drops into it, at the bottom of a pit, is just so unique and satisfying. It’s already fast, but it’s about to get a whole lot faster. With no hesitation at all, you accelerate to what feels like a million miles an hour through the trench, with the train and seats vibrating and shaking beneath you with the raw power of the LIMs – the power that makes the wonderful noise that echoes through Klugheim. It’s nothing short of exhilarating. I find myself throwing my arms wide open and just screaming “AHHHHHH!” at this moment. That’s not a very me thing to do.
As a rule to myself, rides cannot be measured by single moments alone and this becomes Taron’s downfall. It has to be about the whole package for me. Launches aside, the rest of the ride is a good little sit down, a bit of tossing and turning, but it’s never truly intense and it never really excels at anything else in any particular way. I have never found any notable airtime on the ride and without any focus on that, I think having specific elements could have also helped to give it a bit more for me to rave about.
The trim brakes at the end of the ride also act against it for me. It contradicts what I said earlier about the wonderment of fitting everything into this land. They almost found design perfection, but they had to compromise somewhere to make it fit in a forced manner and it’s a bit of an anticlimax to an otherwise spectacular ride.
I love the music for Taron, it’s one of my most listened to soundtracks and hearing it in the ride area always gives me a buzz.
I despise the queue, it starts out great, meandering through rockwork and track supports but ends up in front of what looks like a multi storey car park with a massive section of cattlepen. As it was with other queues in the park, the guests are all overly packed into this tight space but this time they’re also always chainsmoking. A literal haze forms over the queue from the amount of smoking that goes on here and it puts me right off.
So that’s Taron, almost perfection. One of very few coasters in the world that has caused me to return to a park that had built no new attractions since my previous visit. The lure of a night ride is that strong.
The next morning found us bombing down the autobahn towards the only German park of the trip. The border from the Netherlands to Germany can easily be missed, unless your car is clever enough to tell you that the speed limits have suddenly changed.
We were one of the first cars to arrive in the seemingly tiny car park and nabbed a space next to a hut directly opposite the park’s second entrance, which lets you straight into the rather attractive looking Chinese area.
Day 2 – Phantasialand
Often described as the best theme park on the planet, first impressions were that although some areas did look amazing, it was all very tightly packed. On a good day this could be seen as immersive, on a bad day – more clasutrophobic. This was a weekday past the end of the local school holidays and we were surprised at the crowd levels that were beginning to build and obstruct our journey around. There were also staggered openings of certain ride areas that meant turning up early didn’t particularly help our cause. If we wanted to be among the first into the new land, it would have meant queuing an hour anyway just for it to open up.
After reaching the central plaza and getting our bearings, we opted to start the day on Maus au Chocolat, which was billed to open half an hour after the park had. The queue was a little lighter and contained strange acts from guests including producing boxes of hard boiled eggs out of nowhere and proceeding to eat them/drop them on the floor. This shooting dark ride was amazing. You can tell from the smell, the moment you walk in and wind your way down the stairs that you’re in for a treat. The vehicles stop at several screens on their journey at which you get to play fun shooting games with chocolate and mice of course. The sections in between the screens are what steps it up a gear as an attraction, just being plain mesmerising to look at.
A strong start, what next? We headed through the archway towards Wuze Town, which was to open within the next half an hour (not that long now, having been on our first ride). The pathways suddenly became a lot quieter and more pleasant, until we headed indoors.
This indoor section is home to a pair of Maurer spinning coasters and the queue for these rides was nothing short of grim. Again, tons of people had turned up before it was open and begun packing their way into the dark, dingy, loud and sweaty maze of a queueline, where we couldn’t even tell what was what.
These spinners are both special in that they have a few magic tricks up their sleeve and each one of the two has it’s own unique feature. They both start with an elevator lift, which houses a single car and brings it swiftly up to the highest point of the ride, also unusually tilting it at an angle ready to drop upon release. If you are facing backwards in the car, this is particularly thrilling. The layout begins sprawling out through the building, with one of the sides having a particularly notable airtime hill past a waterfall. They then enter a traditional wild mouse style section of sharp flat turns, up high, that kill the pace a bit before heading onto the long spiralling helices around the theming centrepiece of the indoor area. The final magic comes at the end of the rides, where both have a ‘trick track’ section, on which the car comes to a stop, and the track itself moves with you to position you in a different way. They also have a wonderful ‘bounce’ effect where the track appears to temporarily give from underneath you while you’re on the final brake section – don’t ask me how this is done.
I was disappointed to only get a single lap on each of these very intriguing creations, but it simply wasn’t worth suffering the queue again for more and we would eventually just run out of time.
In the same vicinity is another indoor coaster, Temple of the Nighthawk. This strange Vekoma navigates a pitch black warehouse through three separate lift hills, with a very sedate experience between each one. It’s a bit of an outlier for the park and is regularly billed for removal at some point, but I didn’t dislike it.
The other supposed outlier also here is Hollywood Tour, an indoor boat ride around various film scenes. I liked it. It doesn’t really fit the park at all, but it’s generally impressive or otherwise tacky in an always entertaining manner.
I don’t think we could wait for the new attraction any longer, so we headed into the wonderful Klugheim.
The other claim I didn’t mention at the beginning of the report is that Taron has the most ‘crossing points’ of it’s own track over itself , on any coaster in the world.
The ride itself is ridiculous. Due to the lack of height differential it maintains it’s speed almost endlessly from the first launch, darting this way and that, seemingly without any plan or purpose at all. The second launch doesn’t even feel necessary as you’re already moving with such a pace, but sure enough you lurch down into the deepest depths of the area and you’re suddenly going twice as fast again – the way the whole ride shakes while this is happening, combined with the sheer elation of knowing there’s another half to this experience as you accelerate ever quicker towards it, stirs a reaction in me like almost nothing else.
Somewhere amidst all this is the family coaster that opened at the same time, Raik. Another remarkable achievement in itself, this Vekoma junior boomerang intertwines itself with big brother Taron. It lacks a little in the force department, but it’s a satisfying ride if only for the views and the interaction.
A massive drop tower and dark ride all rolled into one sounded like my kind of attraction. Mystery Castle was a let down though. A confusing start lead to angry staff members. The ride sequence itself was weak, suffering from a strong controlled sensation that eliminates the point of a good drop tower. The visual spectacle when the roof lit up with lightning and highlighted all the other vehicles around the ride, giving an impressive sense of the scale of the whole thing was by far my favourite part.
Sadly my dominating memory of Chiapas, the intensely themed log flume, was that of the restraints being awkward. Unlike traditional flumes, this uses a lap bar, supposedly to combat the fact that this ride claims the steepest drop of its type in the world. The bar goes nowhere near my lap however, directly pinning down the middle of my thigh, so my feet are forced into the floor. When that floor is inches deep in water, this isn’t pleasant. Part of the fun of a water ride for me is trying to save yourself from a soaking, in whatever way possible, but being doomed from the moment you sit down to sink your foot into a small lake, cramped in with many other guests and have it remain that way throughout the entire experience put me off a bit.
Things went from bad to worse after we got lost trying to find Colorado Adventure. A highly themed mine train with incredible interaction should have been really good fun, but we ended up in the front row where the train has a roof. The tracking of the ride was awful in this position, jerking uncomfortably all over the place to the point where I hit my head hard on one of the pillars of the train. That put me off more than a bit.
Geister Rikscha was a haunted house style omnimover dark ride, with Chinese mythology. Not much of the experience jumped out at me, but like with Hollywood Tour it had a certain charm about it that I couldn’t help but enjoy.
We’re still missing a coaster in here somehow, the park really is hard to navigate.
I think we could be forgiven for missing it. Taron may have had impressive immersion, but I think the theming of this B&M invert is a bit underappreciated these days.
It blends into its environment so well that you can barely get a picture of it. This level of landscape interaction makes for an amazing ride, with the train hurtling around entrenched corners and into surprise inversions without you ever knowing what’s coming next.
It doesnt quite have the moments of intensity found on some inverts, but it more than makes up for it through a sense of sheer disorientation. I couldn’t even describe to you how the layout works, and I like that.
Our day was fast coming to a close at this point, with no real time for rerides on anything. It’s partly the number of quality attractions that we had to get through, but the amount of queueing did feel like a sufferance on more than one occasion, for what should be the most efficient country in the world on a supposedly quiet day.
We wanted to find a shop to buy some merchandise before we left, but at the point of ride closure announcement, staff members were driving round on golf buggies and shouting at people to get out of their park. All the shops had promptly closed as well and we suddenly felt very unwelcome. You weren’t even allowed to relax and take a stroll out of the park at your own pace, instead they had to sour the day with a poor attitude. This coupled with a few other incidents throughout the visit left me with a final impression of Phantasialand that was less than favourable. Which is a shame. They’ve got some cracking rides.
The opening of Taron at Phantasialand resonated particularly strongly with me this year. Aside from the almost unprecedented levels of theming that looked to be going into such a high thrill attraction, the park decided to stake out the claim of ‘fastest multi-launch coaster in Europe’, taking the title from my favourite ride in the world, Helix, who never claimed to care about such trivialities. It demanded to be checked out and a trip was promptly planned around it, flying into Amsterdam and picking up a few new parks and rides along the way.
Day 1 – Drievliet
Our first stop was this unassuming Dutch park, hidden away in what mostly resembles an industrial estate. We initially parked on the wrong side of the grounds, getting stuck behind a fence and staring in at a wild mouse ride in confusion. With some further guidance, we drove back around the perimeter, through some iron gates and across loose tarmac into the actual car park.
It was a whirlwind tour of the park once we finally managed to step foot inside, as we had other places to be the same day.
The first thing we came to was Twistrix, an unconventional Maurer spinner with a train of cars rather than their usual single 4 seaters. It’s a little on the small side and this results on not much of anything happening, but it’s a different experience at least.
Formule X
The star attraction here is undoubtedly this Maurer X-Car. Though a short ride, it manages to pack a surprising amount of fun into a small footprint by use of a quick launch and many unconventionally shaped elements that weave around each other. It never quite gets intense at any point, but the forces it provides are certainly interesting. If anyone needed a good gateway coaster into the world of inversions, this would probably be my most recommended.
The wild mouse we were staring at from the outside earlier is called Kopermijn, the 3rd and final Maurer coaster in the park. Very standard stuff, nothing to report.
Dynamite Express is a Mack powered coaster, bucking the loyalty trend. Again nothing out of the ordinary here, another good family ride.
And with that, the park was complete. Certainly worth the visit for Formule X but otherwise entirely unremarkable in the grand scheme of things. I’m not sure they can do a whole lot to improve anything either, seemingly being rather landlocked by their inelegant surroundings.
We soon hit the road again to what was billed to be the more significant park of the day.
Toverland
Our first impressions of the place weren’t great, entering through what can only be described as a warehouse. The website would have you believe they were marketing themselves as a fantastic fairytale of a park, like a smaller Efteling, which is a dangerous comparison to draw upon.
Within this warehouse was cred number 1 – Boomerang. Thankfully it isn’t an actual boomerang, but a custom Vekoma junior. It was surprisingly rough for the size but otherwise inoffensive.
As you move into the outdoor section of the park, things begin to look a little nicer.
The area surrounding the front half of their GCI woodie is nicely themed. The queue leads you into the centre of the structure and then up the stairs into the loading gates, where the exhilarating fly-through portion of the track can be witnessed – a train loudly bursting through the upper half of the station and scaring the anticipating next riders.
Troy was my 200th rollercoaster and though a solid package, it did leave a little to be desired. It’s fast paced throughout and rides with the slightly rough and ready vigour that all good wooden coasters should do, but my main issue lies in the fact that there are no standout moments whatsoever. Previous experience with GCIs had shown me that they can have unpredictable forces in their strangely shaped corner transitions and their generally twisty layouts often favour this type of sensation over any more traditional airtime. Troy lacked either of those things and while I can’t say it was a bad ride by any means, I have no way of really defending it either.
A ride I can comfortably say is bad is the Vekoma motocoaster. Getting into the motorbike seats is difficult and the resultant riding position is just hard to enjoy, with your back bent over by an awkward lump of a restraint that keeps pushing against you and any force on the ride only enhancing the discomfort.
The Mack spinner was much better. The fairytale aspect of the park finally shines through in the intricate station for this ride and some onboard audio in the trains makes it even more enjoyable. In terms of the coaster itself, the spinning was a little unpredictable. Over our three laps, we only had one in which the rotation properly got going and the ride got particularly enjoyable and intense because of it. The times that the cars didn’t spin so much, it did feel like it was holding back from its otherwise good layout.
With all the creds done for the day, we had a late lunch in the indoor section before queuing for Maximum Blitz Bahn. The ride is a Bobkart – a single seater vehicle in a trough track, externally powered like a dodgem car that the rider is able control, to an extent, throughout the layout. What makes this one stand out is the incredible theming in the queue. Strong smells, an incredible attention to detail and wacky contraptions line the tightly enclosed pathway and far outweigh the actual ride experience, which due to throughput was stopping me from going full speed at any point and therefore competing with the ‘best times of the day’ board at the end.
I liked Toverland enough. It had a decent set of attractions, nothing outstanding. There are some signs here and there that show a good effort towards being the type of park they appear to be aiming for, but there’s still a fair amount of work to be done to make it more cohesive.
Admittedly it wasn’t the best of planning on our part, but it all went a bit wrong today. The park wasn’t due to open until the afternoon, so we did some general sightseeing in the morning.
Not usually our cup of tea but it was rather nice.
We arrived at the park entrance before opening time and joined a reasonably hefty queue, dodging some unnervingly huge ants while we waited. There’s also a zoo here so we remained hopeful that not everyone was going to be here for the rides. Time wasn’t going to be on our side – we had a plane to catch later.
Day 2 – Parque de Atracciones de Madrid
As well as the very late start in opening hours, we discovered once inside the park that there were also several staggered timings for some of the major attractions, making our life even more difficult. This was our first encounter with the chain owner Parques Reunidos and the operations were, in a word, dire.
Abismo
This is the only Maurer sky loop in the world that isn’t just a loop. Worryingly for me it has had an incident of becoming stuck upside down on the lift hill – my absolute worst nightmare. It quite easily earns the nickname of Abysmal as it is far from a comfortable experience. The restraints are attempting to be a lap bar design, but they are rather large and generally fold up as far as your chest, at an angle, and continue to tighten against you throughout the ride duration.
The vertical lift and slow upside down crawl are deeply uncomfortable, of course. You then drop into an extended version of what the standard model would consist of, entirely filled with positive forces. As the restraints have already tightened so much from this sequence, the following airtime hill, though very powerful, fails to deliver with any satisfaction because you’re just so pinned down and restricted in your seat. If anything, you’re just going to take it lung first. Not much else happens, a slightly awkward turnaround and then being thrust into the brakes at far too high a speed that can only result in either relief or disappointment.
On paper, Tornado was to be the most significant coaster of the day. A rare Intamin invert of which there are only 3 in the world. As one of the main rivals in terms of manufacturers, we were interested to see how they could compete against B&M who had established themselves as king of the invert. Sadly the result was far more comparable to a Vekoma SLC. The trains have a rigid build, with pairs of rows being joined together in a fixed straight line. This makes the whole thing ride a little awkwardly. Though not rough in any way it lacks the grace and smoothness I usually associate with the ride type. Aside from this, the layout was entirely uninspired. Dissatisfying inversions seemingly for the sake of it, and corners. That’s all I can really describe. Apologies for the lack of pictures, we really were prioritising getting things done.
TNT Tren de la Mina
What turned out to be the best ride of the day was this Gerstlauer mine train. The queue was awful, just awful. We seemed to be waiting around forever with very little movement. By the time we reached the station we could see why – the two ride attendants who were supposed to be checking restraints and loading guests into and out of the train in a timely fashion were animatedly chatting away to each other the whole time, more often than not completely stopping what they were supposed to be doing to continue their conversation. I have rarely seen ride staff quite so distracted. (Future note: so it came to me as no surprise that there was a full on train collision on this very ridelater in the year). It’s a shame, because the ride itself is good. Similar to the Mack on the previous day, it’s a clear cut above your average family ride package with smooth tracking and surprisingly significant forces.
The terrible operations continued onto Vértigo, a standard Mack wild mouse being run in a very non standard fashion. They would load 4 cars at once, all in the station, then send them off in block sequence, waiting for all of them to return again before unloading and starting the procedure again. Usually you can achieve a constant flow of guests on a ride like this, but with the method they chose to enforce it was painfully slow and stop-start.
Tarántula
The custom Maurer spinner was the only other coaster we managed to achieve a single lap on. It wasn’t particularly interesting as a layout and didn’t seemed designed very well in order to initiate any good spinning, which is a shame, as I thought it looked rather fun.
There were 2 very small creds here, one of which was closed all day and the other had a huge rowdy queue of families. We weren’t 100% on the park’s policy for adults riding such child sized rides and didn’t really want to risk putting up with another long wait only to be turned away for silly rules that they would no doubt have, so in that sense we failed to finish the park.
The only other attraction that there was time for was a walk on – a spider shooting dark ride called Cueva de las Tarántulas. It followed a particularly claustrophobic series of tunnels without any more open areas of scenery, which was quite impressive and befitting of the theme.
It was now time to rush back to the airport for our flight, somewhat disappointed that the weekend hadn’t ended as well as it had started. I wasn’t impressed with this park at all, everything about it was just a bit shoddy, seeming to actively work against us having a good time at every turn. The lineup is poor and I can’t foresee coming back for another attempt.
Madrid is home to two sizeable parks that should make for a good weekend away. They both open at a reasonable time in March and as much the rest of the world seems to be getting lazier with operating periods, it seemed like a good trip to kick off the new season.
There wasn’t much distance to cover and the second day is really a city park, so we opted to stick to public transport for the weekend. A straightforward train journey and subsequent bus ride took us to our first destination.
Day 1 – Parque Warner Madrid
We didn’t have the best of luck in terms of attraction availability here. It turned out that two major coasters were closed for the duration and while neither of them were the main draws for the place, it was a bit of a disappointment.
The first spite was the park’s Giant Inverted Boomerang. There aren’t many of these in the world and they have a bit of a reputation for being broken all the time, this one staying true to form. I was lucky to be able to ride my first of these a couple of months ago in China, so wasn’t particularly bothered other than the obvious lack of +1 and making it difficult for me to one day complete the set.
The other unexpected closure was Coaster Express, the only wooden coaster in the park. Generally this ride gets very poor reviews, but I never like to let that put me off. Experiencing something for yourself is the only sensible way to form an opinion and we wanted to see what the fuss was about.
So that’s the negativity safely out of the way, what was actually running today? Leaning heavily on their IPs and the fact that this park is owned by Warner, the two smallest coasters are both situated in a Looney Tunes area.
Correcaminos Bip, Bip
Roadrunner’s contribution is a Mack youngstar, a model which I find to be rather superior in the world of family coasters. The ride is always butter smooth and elements like the pictured overbank turn have significantly more vigour than the more common hardware for this type of attraction. It just feels well designed.
Tom y Jerry
The larger models of Zierer Tivolis are always amusement for the ridiculous length of their trains.
At the back of the park, the superhero rides sit by side, what would be a very common sight over in the USA.
Batman la Fuga
As would this particular attraction. This B&M invert is known as the Batman layout, named after the first that was built at Six Flags Great America in 1992 and then also the fact that the many, many clones that followed (12 currently operating) more often than not ended up sharing the same name and branding. But this was my first encounter with one, so I wasn’t going to let that bother me and I really, really enjoyed this ride. The theming is very impressive, entering the attractive looking asylum for an indoor portion of queueline. Overall there’s a great aesthetic about it, even from just the foliage.
What matters most is that it’s ridiculously intense. The first loop immediately reminded me of the signature characterisic of these inverts in that they feel like they’re trying to rip your dangling feet off with their strong positive forces. Before you can catch your breath, you hit a snappy zero G, immediately followed by a second loop. This loop is even more intense than the first, but the foot sensation doesn’t go away when it’s over, it stays, entirely sustained throughout the following tightly banked corner. The length and consistency of this force was ridiculous, almost to the point of being unbearable and all I found myself doing was laughing and instinctively punching my legs as if to restore a sense of feeling to them. The remainder of the layout is a densely packed series of turns complete with two more satisfyingly whippy inversions. You can see why it became a popular layout to buy from the way it fits such a high level of thrill into a relatively small area, I just wish more parks had the creativity to try something new each time.
Superman / la Atracción de Acero
The other big B&M is a floorless – again with more dangling feet, but this time above the track. This one also had a nicely themed queue, entering through the Daily Planet, with plenty of decoration to represent the franchise.
The remainder of the surroundings are a little less attractive as the ride just heads out into open desert beyond this service road, but this doesn’t matter as it was another highly enjoyable ride. The characteristic feature of many B&M first drops is that they don’t enter them directly out of the lift hill, instead having a little stress easing section of track and this particular one provides a satisfying surprise kick of airtime, most prominent in the back row. The layout is a simple sequence of 7 inversions, only really broken up by a single hill after the cobra roll. Though not the most inspiring, every element flows very well together and nothing feels particularly wasted (even the trim brakes were more amusing than jarring – I heard them more than I felt them), resulting in a solid experience from start to finish.
The park’s signature dark ride is Hotel Embrujado, a Vekoma mad house and I am beginning to learn that these were more common than I thought. The preshow and overall presentation was impressive, it just lacked a little of the storytelling spark of British rival Hex, though that can partly just be put down to language barrier.
The water ride lineup here was strong. An Acme themed rapids back in the Looney Tunes area was good fun, with much wacky theming and many moments of water based peril. We also tried Rio Bravo, the log flume out in the Western section of the park. It contained a great surprise moment of an indoor backwards drop complete with airtime hill (log flumes can do that?) which really made it stand out from the crowd.
The final attraction of note was their exceptionally huge S&S shot and drop towers, which we rode just for the sheer size. While height helps the overall spectacle, it doesn’t always result in more significant on-ride sensations – there’s further to travel and less opportunity to catch you off guard with any punchier moments.
Ride closures aside, I was impressed with Parque Warner Madrid. We had a lovely day here with a very relaxed atmosphere, racking up many laps of Batman and (vs?) Superman well into the evening. Operations were decent, the supporting lineup was significant, nothing else to complain about at all really. Save that for tomorrow.
