Today began with what was meant to be a short visit to Jacquou Parc, a small park seemingly in the middle of nowhere.
Things were off to a strong and very loud start thanks to a French Airforce Rafale performing a low pass right next to the park as soon as we got out of the car. Sadly this would be the only thing worth remembering from the park.
Ears ringing and adrenaline flowing we now joined a massive queue to buy tickets, a queue that was barely moving and had nowhere to hide from the blistering sun. The park only had 2 ticket counters to deal with the rabble of people and the staff inside of them were moving at the speed of erosion.
Sombrero
Once we finally made it into the park we first stumbled upon Sombrero, a coaster(?) that felt questionable in almost every way imaginable.
After a quick toilet stop we next made our way over to the back of the park where they keep their other 2 coasters, a Wacky Worm and a spinning mouse.
On approach to the spinning mouse the operator closed the queueline in our faces and we immediately knew what was going on.
The coaster was scheduled to close at 12 for lunch and he was being extremely cheeky with that rule. It was currently just before 11:30 and he was closing the queue now to make sure he could leave at exactly 12. The thing was though, there was nowhere near half an hours worth of people in the queue…
At first we stood at the closed queue sign and kept trying to get his attention, expecting him at any moment to notice that he didn’t have a half hour queue to clear and to wave us through. It wasn’t working though, he was trying his best to ignore us, looking guilty and ashamed but unwilling to do anything about it.
Other people were clearly upset too, and can you blame them? Like us they got here for opening, queued forever to get in, rode maybe one ride and now they were closing rides in your face, it was actually insulting.
We decided our best plan for redemption would be to complete the park now, sans the mouse, then be the first people in the queue when it reopened.
Speedy Gonzales
Completing the park would be easy, all that was left was the Wacky Worm, where a much nicer operator was positioned, one who actually cared about the paying customers.
Well, we’ve got 90 minutes to kill, fancy some lunch?
The nearest shop was about 20 minutes away, we had time to spare though and the drive there was great fun, there are some advantages to being in the middle of nowhere.
Crazy Coaster
Five minutes before the queue of the spinning mouse was due to reopen we arrived and immediately took our place at the front.
We had hoped the same operator that closed the queue in our faces would be the one who would drop the chain and taste our discontent, but sadly the nice operator from the Wacky Worm took that responsibility and we can’t be mad at him.
Clearly running late now, we needed to complete our visit to Parc Fenestre as quickly as possible. Yeah that didn’t happen…
The park was nothing like we were expecting, this became clear when the sat nav ended its guidance at a car park in the middle of a pretty town. So we parked up, next to an abandoned cable car station and continued on foot.
There was a faded park map at the bottom of a set of stairs, so we climbed them assuming it would take us straight into the park, nope. At the top there was a station for a miniature train, a ticket office selling I’m not sure what and absolutely nothing else.
We were fairly certain the park was free entry and went with the logic that the ticket office was probably for the train, so we continued walking in search of other attractions.
Soon the path we were on opened up into a massive wooded park area with no indication of which way to go. At first we headed left because we saw a building that from a distance looked like the Haunted Mansion, it wasn’t and it turned out this way led us back into the town.
Next we headed right and after walking a considerable distance through more beautiful scenery found a less faded and up to date park map, we were heading in the right direction but weren’t even halfway there.
When we finally arrived at Parc Fenestre we noticed 2 things immediately, that the train we saw earlier would have taken us straight to the park and that the park itself was really busy.
We powered straight to coaster to find out how many jutons (tokens) it required and then consulted yet another park map to see where we could purchase them. There were four places if my memory serves me right, a hut that was closed, the exit of the actual Haunted Mansion, that ticket office we saw when we first entered and the hook a duck stall, which is the one we opted for.
Cacahuète Express
Jutons in hand it was finally time to experience the newest Soquet in the World, Cacahuète Express. This powered coaster was great fun, smooth, forceful and full of charm. Not only did I have the pleasure of sliding about in my seat over multiple laps, my phone decided to join me. On 2 seperate occasions it slid out of my pocket, onto the seat and then almost out the side of the car, nothing can resist the power of Soquet.
Time to finally get back on the road and head to Vulcania now, but not before interacting with donkeys that were literally chilling in the ride area of the nearby car ride, I think I like Parc Fenestre.
Vulcania
Vulcania isn’t just themed to volcanoes and how amazing they are, it is actually located in an area that used to be full of volcanic activity. This meant the final leg of the drive to the park was absolutely spectacular, with beautiful scenery on display in every direction. What really blew my mind though is that we drove past the volcano that’s printed on the Volvic bottles. It was crazy to think that the volcano from the label I stare at when I’m bored at work was now right there infront of me.
Despite losing time at seemingly every opportunity today the first thing we did when we arrived was sit on a bench outside the park and watch K-Pop videos. This was because when we arrived we noticed the park had a cheap evening ticket just like Futuroscope and you bet we were going to get that discount.
When it was finally time we purchased our cheap evening tickets from a friendly lady and made our way into the park.
Vulcania’s layout is really fun but also really hard to explain properly, I’ve been and I still don’t fully understand it. Instead of confusing us both it’s easier just to say that the park is split into several floors. The highest floor is the outside section, which is home to Namazu. Every other floor is in a big central building that’s built into the ground.
Namazu
Speaking of Namazu…
After getting lost, see I told you the layout was fun, we arrived at Intamin’s newest Family Launch Coaster.
Namazu immediately wins points from me for its theme which manages to be both educational and mythological. The coaster is themed to earthquakes in general but also leans into Japanese mythology, with the Namazu name being shared with a giant catfish who brings earthquakes to Japan when he’s not kept in line.
After a small outdoor queue next to the second launch you head inside the lab, where after another short queue you enter Namazu’s awesome preshow.
This preshow has 4 different sequences it can show you, based on 4 different real life earthquakes, which all had different characteristics. Namazu isn’t content with just explaining how those earthquakes went down though, you get to experience them for yourself, minus the massive destruction of course. I loved it, it was interesting to learn about the different types of earthquakes and the earthquake effect the room uses is really quite effective.
Next it’s onto the ride station, which still had that new Intamin smell to it.
Namazu begins with a drop track section, exactly like Objectif Mars should have. It isn’t anywhere near as forceful as Objectif Mars’ drop track but it is one of the nicest themed drop sections I’ve ever seen on a coaster, themed to experiencing an earthquake while being inside of a cave.
After the drop you hit a small dip before rolling into the first launch of the coaster. The launch is quite punchy and sends you into the first section of Namazu which is great twisty floaty fun.
While it doesn’t suddenly start kicking your ass like Juvelen does after its second launch, this added boost in speed makes the second and final section of Namazu great fun. The twisty bits throw you about nicely, the floaty bits get a little more aggressive and now you are treated to nice positive moments too.
If you couldn’t tell I’m quite the fan of Namazu and I don’t want to imagine what the park would have been like before it’s addition in mid 2021.
Before we move on I’d just like to show you the view you are presented with when looking back towards the rest of the park from the Namazu entrance area.
Next we headed into the central building that houses the majority of the park’s attractions and took the elevator to the floor that’s home to Volcans sacrés, Vulcania’s only true dark ride.
Volcans sacrés is a trackless dark ride that’s themed to volcanoes, but more specifically the relationship different cultures around the World have with volcanoes. It’s full of animatronics, special effects and tons of heart. I really enjoyed it, especially a moment near the end of the ride where the trackless system is put to full effect in one of the greatest moments I’ve ever seen on a dark ride.
Premier envol
Premier envol was the next attraction we headed to and I’m disappointed to say it was rather crap.
The attraction is a 4D cinema of sorts that takes you on a flight with a bunch of eagles. Issues arise from the fact the ride film is pretty boring and simulation effects come in the form of a moving platform you’re standing on that gently tilts you from side to side and isn’t all that relevant to what’s being shown on the screen.
Thinking we had now ridden everything we wanted, we went for a few more laps on Namazu before grabbing something to eat.
Nearing the end of our makeshift meal Heartline suddenly jumped up and ushered us over to the open elevator. When we asked what was going on, he could only reply with the statement “Dragon Ride 2”.
Dragon Ride 2
Somehow both me and Heartline had missed the existence of Dragon Ride 2 in our trip research and it wasn’t on either of our to do lists. I had seen the name for the first time earlier on a souvenir coin and at that moment had foolishly guessed that it must be the name of a previous attraction at the park.
The legend and existence of Dragon Ride 2 was coming to life before our very eyes and it left us with many questions.
What happened to Dragon Ride 1?
Was it personal this time?
And most importantly what the hell is Dragon Ride 2?
We didn’t want our night to end on that disappointment, so we made a spur of the moment decision to sprint up many stairs for 1 more go on Volcans sacrés. Heartline managed to make it into the queueline seconds before it closed, me and his wife were not so lucky, but thanks to an amazing member of staff we were all able to enter the queue and be the last riders of the day on this awesome dark ride.
The only thing left to do now was to head outside and watch the park’s night time show, which they were billing as a pyrotechnics spectacular.
This meant taking a seat with thousands of other people in a ghetto makeshift grandstand which was unnerving on both counts of it collapsing or giving us covid.
I don’t want to be too negative because I did enjoy it, much more than Futuroscope infact, but it wasnt really what I had in mind. More pyros and less gyrating neon dragons next time please.
I enjoyed my visit to Vulcania, it’s always nice to experience something a little different from time to time, even more so when you’re 5 days into a 3 week coaster holiday. Namazu and Volcans sacrés were great and the park in general had a nice atmosphere throughout, which combined with friendly staff and stunning views made for a great time.
Thanks for reading, click here for the next part of my report, where we visit Anatolia Parc, Naturland(ia), Lou Bac Moutain, Pirat’ Parc, Parc d’Attractions Marseillan-Plage, Lunapark and Fabrikus World.
Today began by righting the wrong that was forgetting Ange Michel’s existence on the second day of the trip. This would come in the form of driving a considerable way off-piste. This upset the car enough to kickstart oil issues that would plague us for the rest of the trip.
Parc Ange Michel
Let’s hope this place is worth the emergency oil change we performed in a supermarket car park.
It wasn’t looking promising at first, as we joined a rabble of people getting sunburnt in an attempt to buy tickets.
Once in though we were able to run between shade until we stumbled upon Tourbillon.
This would be the second of these stupid Gosetto spinning coasters that I’ve ridden, and the worst, but only because it was a whirlwind of large bugs and blinding sun.
Tacot en Folie sucked and stains the great legacy of Soquet.
This coaster bored me enough to start contemplating if it was worth driving hours out of our way and breaking the car to visit Ange Michel. The worrying thing is I still think it was.
Thankfully we were able to find something to cheer us up and it’s name was Flash Tower.
We figured we might as well as we wandered past the park’s Zamperla tower ride and it turned out to be a fantastic decision. This ride doesn’t work like a conventional drop tower, instead it pulls you up and down the tower repeatedly throughout the cycle. That doesn’t sound that impressive but you need to understand that every time it pulls you down it delivers absolutely outrageous ejector airtime. At least 8 times during the cycle you are thrown up into the restraint so hard that it almost feels wrong. By the fouth time I was sure I was used to it, but no, it kicked my ass every time and I loved every second of it.
For once I am legitimately upset that I forgot to take a photo of the ride.
Tornado
We ended our visit to Ange Michel with a ride on Tornado, another spinning mouse, this one tame enough that it’s suitable for people who hate spinning and going backwards.
With wrongs now righted we could finally put Ange Michel behind us and move onto bigger and better things.
L’Île aux Géants
Like a park exclusively for children…
On one hand L’Île aux Géants is located a short distance from Futuroscope and it felt almost rude not to pay it a visit. On the other hand we weren’t sure we’d get in and it would cut into our Futuroscope time. Decisions…
In the end we took the plunge and I’m glad we did because it was certainly an experience.
From the very second we arrived everything was screaming that there was no way we were going to get in without children. The place couldn’t have looked anymore children only if it tried and the pricing structure implied adults couldn’t enter alone.
It was therefore rather tense as we approached what you could loosely call a ticket counter and asked for “2 adults please”. To our surprise and without a strange look or single question from the staff member we were granted our request and made our way into the park.
Avengers Roller Coaster
And straight to Avengers Roller Coaster, yet another Zyklon Galaxi. What this one lacked in immense theming, it more than made up for in copyright infringement.
Being a very small park, with a small team behind it, attractions operate on a rotational basis. Because of that the second and final coaster of the park was currently closed and would remain that way for another 15 minutes, this is where the true genius of L’Île aux Géants shines through.
The park is littered with plastic lawn chairs that are free to use and free to be taken anywhere you please.
In the future, when I look back at my life in this hobby, I pray that I never forget the time I sat on plastic lawn furniture in a children’s park waiting for a Wacky Worm to open.
Brocomela
At exactly the scheduled time of reopening the operator of the Zyklon walked over and we swapped our lawn furniture for seats on the back of the Brocomela, if only it was always this convenient.
Well that went far better than it had any right to, let’s head over to Futuroscope now.
Futuroscope
I’m going to be completely honest, until recently I had never heard of Futuroscope. Heartline tried his best to get me up to speed though, informing me that the place is extremely popular and focused on learning, that probably wasn’t the best way to sell it to me.
The park, if you could call it that, feels like what would happen if you combined Epcot, a World’s fair and a museum. Many massive impressive buildings everywhere with one or two attractions in each. In my opinion this led to a serious lack of atmosphere while bouncing between attractions but we will get back to that.
Objectif Mars is an Intamin family spinning coaster and it opened at the park in mid 2020. I’d been wanting to ride the coaster ever since it was first announced, with promises of the project costing insane amounts of money and the indoor sections being spectacular.
I’m disappointed to announce though that the experience as a whole was quite the let down and I rate it as a whole experience because if you were to judge it on the coaster alone you’d be even more disappointed.
The queueline was no where near as impressive as I was expecting, in fact it was one of the least exciting queuelines in the park, which isn’t great when you consider the coaster is pretty much brand new. I was getting serious Smiler but not as crap vibes throughout the tedious “warehouse but with some optical effects” themed queueline.
Now onto the coaster itself, or lack thereof. You start with an indoor section which to me at least just played out like a series of unlinked special effect demonstrations. Here’s some Telsa coils and here’s some fire effects, don’t get me wrong I love to see this kind of stuff but it was hardly presented in a spectacular way. The indoor section ends with an admittedly great effect though as you are tilted onto your back via a trick track, while looking up at screens mimicking sitting in a space shuttle engaing warp speed.
Then you very slowly and awkwardly come off the trick track and turn a corner in silence to go outside and start the main coaster section.
Next up you engage a launch that barely gets things moving, go over an airtime hill that doesn’t have airtime and then float around a couple of corners barely moving before you hit the second launch.
This section of Objectif Mars is a lot better. The launch is quite punchy, the cars start spinning properly, the twisted airtime hill provides actual airtime and the following couple of corners provide some nice forces. It’s just a shame this section lasts about 14 seconds from entering the second launch to hitting the final brakes.
Objectif Mars does end on a high though, with probably the best drop track in the World. I feel it would have worked so much better to have this section at the start though. It feels very disjointed and like another showing off of effects to have the drop track at the end of the coaster.
I think disjointed is great way to sum up the entire experience actually. From the mediocre queueline promising you a trip to Mars, to the unlinked special effects show inside, to the snail pace boring first half, to the pretty great second half and finally to the intense drop track section, nothing really flows properly in my opinion. It’s such a shame really, I really wanted to love Objectif Mars but sadly it wasn’t to be. Don’t worry though, there are 2 more very similar Intamin coasters on this trip that I loved.
Next we headed to the Arthur 4D cinema, which was located in its own huge building.
Coming from someone who doesn’t like the Arthur film series or normally enjoy 4D cinemas, this thing was fantastic!
The theming inside was amazing and the 4D film itself was insane. I couldn’t stop laughing from the combination of comedy on screen and the relentless aggression from the 4D ride system. Arthur was awesome, but wouldn’t be the best 4D cinema at the park…
As we passed the park’s observation tower we noticed that it closed earlier than the rest of the park, so with it being quiet at the time we figured it was now or never.
That crown of best 4D cinema in the park? In Europe? In the World? Ever? Belongs to La Vienne dynamique, which from the second we passed through its beautiful waterfall facade escalated comedy to heights previously unknown to me.
Heartline had convinced himself and me that this was a leaning on a bar simulator experience about nature that we only need to experience for the sake of the Dark Ride Database, how wrong he was…
At first we were ushered into what looked like a dank and dark cinema from the 90s, but the screen wasn’t a screen at all, it was a solid sheet of high pressure water. Wait what is this ride again?
Then as best I can remember, an advert played on the water screen, nothing else happened and the house lights came back on. Was that it?
Doors to the left of the water cinema then opened and we were ushered into an even bigger cinema, this one clearly the main event, with a massive screen and what looked like at least a hundred 2 seater simulator pods. What actually is this man? I’m getting nervous now.
I cannot explain even a second of what happens next and do it justice, you wouldn’t even believe me if I did. All I can say is that the ride film was hands down one of the greatest motion pictures ever etched onto film and that physical comedy was redefined 6 times over, all while the simulator pod tried to murder me several times.
I couldn’t tell you how long the ride film lasted, all I know is that I couldn’t breathe for more than half of it and I haven’t cried that much from laughter in my life. What a find this ride was, I can’t believe we almost didn’t experience it, the best ride in the park without a second thought.
Still trying to regain our composure we next headed to La Machine à Voyager dans le Temps, a tracked screen based dark ride themed to time travel and those annoying Rabbid characters no one likes from the Rayman universe.
Futuroscope goes 2-0 in creating rides from franchises I don’t like and making them enjoyable.
The interior queueline for this ride was pretty special and incredibly detailed, further throwing shade on the half arsed job over at Objectif Mars.
I was quite sceptical on what I’d make of the ride itself, Rabbids and screens aren’t high on my list of dark ride preferences but to my surprise I really enjoyed it. The ride goes a lot harder than I was expecting and little surprises here and there really helped make it a memorable experience.
While we were always of the understanding that L’Extraordinaire Voyage was a flying theatre, which I’m not really interested in, the park more than once led us to believe that it was going to be much more than the usual flying over the blurry landscapes of the World…
The exterior of the ride takes your past illustrations based on creations from the fantastic mind of Mr Jules Verne.
The beautiful interior queue has you waiting in a room inspired by M.C. Escher, with all the various extraordinary voyages we could possibly go on today.
Next you get led into a generic preshow room to watch a generic preshow about how we are about to go on a generic blurry flight around the World…
But it gets better. We need to board a shuttle thing to take us to our aircraft. Cue a hundred people in a cramped room that simulates us crudely making our way over to it. Note that the room doesn’t have any motion or vibration effects, so it’s just a hundred people crushed together while screens pretend we are moving.
Wait we are having too much fun now, so let’s stop here for 5 minutes after that ends before we make our way to the flying theatre itself.
Oh you thought that killed the ever fading momentum of the experience? You’ve seen nothing yet.
Take your seat on the flying theatre but please don’t expect to move for another 5 minutes because this is the slowest loading simulator in the World.
Then, as expected, it is finally time to go on our blurry flight around the World, what a rip off…
To pick our spirits up we were thrilled to see we had time for 2 more laps on Objectif Mars, it ain’t great but it’s better than what that just was.
On the first of our 2 laps the legend of the medical mask struck again.
A ride host came over to an already restrained Heartline to inform him that he wasn’t wearing a mask, when he was wearing a mask, the same mask he has worn all trip so far and all day at Futuroscope.
When Heartline asked what he was meant to do about it while he was already strapped in and ready to go, the host shrugged and walked off in a huff, right OK then.
It was tonight that we started to slowly come to the conclusion that certain people only consider you as wearing a mask when you are wearing the blue medical masks. None of our current masks were this spec, in fact they were proven as better than that. We had a pack of medical masks in the car though and we would of course wear them if requested at the park entrance. To get to this point in the day though and be told by one man that your mask isn’t suitable is an insult and really frustrating, and it wasn’t even me being told off, don’t worry though, that day will come…
After finding something to eat in the very lacklustre “food court”, we opted to watch the evening show from the footpath as opposed to the designated seating area just incase someone else decided to find fault in Heartline’s mask at the end of a 6 hour visit.
The show was fine but not even close to what I was expecting from the park if I’m honest.
I think Heartline said it best with a statement about the park that has now bled into my everyday life, “it wasn’t without its issues”.
The park itself did little for me atmosphere wise. Like I said earlier there is very little going on between rides, thanks almost entirely to most of them being hidden away in big buildings.
Then the rides. Objectif Mars let me down, Arthur and the Rabbid time machine were great, La Vienne dynamique changed my life and the flying theatre was awful.
The evening show was meh and that one bloke from Objectif Mars sadly ruined my opinion of the staff there.
I’ll say this, I’m so glad we were able to get stupidly cheap evening tickets. I feel like if I paid full price I’d be even more bitter but as it stands I’m happy to think of Futuroscope as a good time but not without its issues.
Thanks for reading, click here for day 5 of the trip, where we visit Jacquou Parc, Parc Fenestre and the much better than Futuroscope, Vulcania.
The initial plan for Ange Michel redemption was to add it onto today’s already stacked line up, this meant today we’d have to get extra fruity.
La Récré des 3 Curés
Which was why we were knocking on the door of Récré 3 at opening.
La Récré des 3 Curés is yet another small family park that I’d never heard of. This time I felt extra stupid though because it turns out that the park opened a brand new custom Gerstlaurer Eurofighter last year and I managed to completely miss it.
Vertika
It’s name is Vertika and after a brisk scenic walk to the back of the park we were now standing in the shadows of the beast waiting for it to open.
It was great! You’ll never find me getting too excited for a Eurofighter but this is certainly one of the best that I’ve ridden. It’s smooth, forceful, snappy and has some good airtime moments.
4 rides back to back, with every intention of riding again if we weren’t in a rush is probably the strongest compliment that I can give Vertika.
Can I just say before we move on, olive green supports and bright red track shouldn’t work, but it really does.
Grand Huit
Whilst clearly not up to the standards of 1066, Grand Huit still offered a fun time, this time devoid of the Soquet shuffle but only because I was sharing a deep seat with Heartline.
With that our time at La Récré des 3 Curés had come to an end and although it was brief it was certainly enjoyable. The park looks nice, the staff are friendly and Vertika is great, what’s not to like?
Kingoland
2 hours from Récré 3 was the next park of the day, Kingoland, a small park that was, at least in the case of today, hot as hell.
I still don’t know what to think of it honestly. Yeah it’s great that the park have gone to the effort of making the coaster look nice but also it really feels like time and money wasted going to this extreme on such a underwelming throw away coaster.
It became apparent once we reached the very much unthemed final 40 minutes of the Apollo Steamrocket queue that Ange Michel would not be possible today and I began looking for possible alternatives almost immediately.
Speed Chenille
With that unpleasantness out of the way we knew we needed to cheer ourselves up with some more Soquet goodness, so we headed over to Speed Chenille.
Speed Chenille swaps the Soquet standard deep seats with padded benches with no restaints and then sends you flying around swooping bends and an airtime hill multiple times at speeds which feel too fast for the set up, it was pretty great.
Next we headed to Kingoland’s only dark ride, Old West Shooting, it was nothing special but it did get us out of direct sunlight for a couple of minutes.
Gold Rush
The final attraction on our must ride list was Gold Rush.
This Pinfari Mini Mega Coaster had only been installed at the park last year and both looked and rode like it was brand new. I was not at all ready for this thing to be butter smooth. Did it make it a decent coaster? Not at all, but I’m not complaining that I came off bruise free.
Thankfully we could now get back to the car, out of the sun and head to our replacement for Ange Michel.
I had found a funfair nearby that officially didn’t open until 8pm but they promised that “some attractions” would be open from 4 which was perfect timing. They had a couple of coasters and I assumed, being their star attractions, that they would be the ones to open at 4, little did I know…
After getting lost several times we finally rocked up at the funfair, which was twinned with a sketchy looking supermarket.
There was absolutely no activity at all visible from outside of the fair, so we ventured in. Inside all we could find of life was a few other groups of people walking past clearly closed attractions and getting annoyed, this may have been a waste of time…
To add insult to injury we next tried to get some snacks from the nearby supermarket. It was in a state of disrepair, had a rather interesting smell to it and worst of all had almost nothing worth buying.
Heartline’s wife comes up to me, “the staff keep staring at me”, “nah surely you’re just being paranoid” I replied, but no it became clear when we got to the cashier that she was right and a whole new saga was about to begin.
The saga of the medical mask, a statement and frame of mind that would end up haunting us for the rest of the trip, we just didn’t know it yet.
“You’re not wearing a mask” the haggard woman said to Heartline’s wife, who was wearing a mask, the very same as Heartline’s infact. The 4 of us entered a hilarious stand off of pure confusion, that only ended when fed up she left the store and the cashier finally continued with our transaction.
Let’s get out of this hellhole…
As we still had time to kill until tonight’s Summer Funfair opened, we went on a rather fitting pilgrimage.
On mine and Heartline’s very first Eurotunnel trip to France, we were flicking through channels in the hotel and landed on Fort Boyard, an insanely entertaining game show that takes place in a real fort off the west coast of France. We were hooked straight away and now try our best to watch the show whenever we can.
Today we had the pleasure of seeing where the magic happens with our own eyes and it was moving, massively helped by the beautiful sunset.
Reignited, we now made our way to Luna Park La Palmyre, our first ever French Summer Funfair and we were excited about what we’d find when we got there.
These kind of ‘parks’ generally start operations at 7pm and then stay open until 2 in the morning, so even with it now being almost 10:30 at night we still had plenty of time to explore.
Upon entering the atmosphere was absolutely electric and I completely forgot that I’d been awake for 14 hours. There were thousands of people, countless attractions, enough lights to rival the sun, pounding music and something happening wherever you looked, this might not be for everyone but I was loving it.
Jet Star
Speaking of loving it.
Jet Star is one of only three operating Schwarzkopf Jet Star 1s in the World, it was my first time experiencing one and I was not at all disappointed. After me and Heartline wedged ourselves into the single car we were taken on one hell of a ride.
Jet Star delivers what Schwarzkopf does best, brutally crushing positives and vicious changes in direction, all while being as smooth as glass. It took my breath away both literally and figuratively, honestly scared me in places and was the perfect start to what would be a great night out.
While Heartline and wife rode the Thriller haunted house I soaked in the atmosphere of the place and was reminded of a time long ago when Hyde Park’s Winter Wonderland used to be good.
Le Dragon
Next up was Le Dragon, a Wacky Worm, but it’s a dragon. The operator ended up giving us 6 laps I think. I spent all of them trying to see where the final coaster of the park was, in the sea of lighting packages, smoke machines and vicious looking flat rides.
Even though my mind was perfectly awake, buzzing even, my body was tired from the days events, this perfectly worked in the favour of Wild Mouse, which was a standard spinning mouse affair. When you’re tired and it’s dark suddenly spinning around on these things becomes 10 times more intense.
I forgot to take a photo of this one, so you’ll have to picture it yourself. You can decide if it was a Reverchon, Zamperla or an exciting exotic brand, I honestly cannot remember, it was fun though.
Mega King Tower
Despite it now being almost 11:30 and us having a 2 hour drive to tonight’s hotel, we just couldn’t turn down a ride on Mega King Tower, the massive drop tower ride that was our beacon for finding the park earlier.
My research leads me to believe it is manufactured by Funtime, one of my favourite drop tower manufacturers, and stands over 260 feet tall. All I can tell you for sure though is that it scared me to death on both the cycles we got on it and that the drop itself is fantastic.
Heartline had read on the Dark Ride Database that a ride named Le Splash at one of the Summer Funfairs had a so called dark ride section and he really wanted to verify this for himself. While walking past tonight’s Le Splash we noticed that it did have some kind of indoor section to start the ride off, this lead to us needing to ride and comedy ensuing.
We boarded our boat, me in front and set off into the great unknown. The indoor section would end up being filled by halloween props and lasers, a dark ride it was not, as for hilarious, it certainly was.
Maybe it was the excitement and electricity of the fair speaking but I really enjoyed the following log flume. Not because it was good but because it was just fun getting into perilous situations with my friends. The highlight of which was the final drop where ejector airtime led to the World’s most brutal water braking, sending everyone behind me violenly launching into my back.
Our first Summer Funfair had been great and we were looking forward to the many more than we had planned for the trip. All we had to do now was stay awake on the almost 2 hour drive to the hotel.
Thankfully we’d be staying in many B&B hotels while we were in France. Thanks to their machine based check in system you could show up at anytime and still get in, a real life saver.
Thanks for reading, click here for day 4, where we finally visit Ange Michel, as well as L’Île aux Géants and Futuroscope.
Today began with a visit to Papéa Parc, a small park located near the town of Le Mans, the town World famous for being home to the Le Mans 24 hour endurance races.
On route to the park I had a great time watching all the various aircraft flying in and out of the town, no doubt on track related duties. The highlight was getting to see the Goodyear airship again after watching it fly over my head on the way home from work just a couple of months before.
Chenille
The first coaster of the day would end up being the first of far too many Wacky Worms on this trip. I forgot to take a picture of this one but rest assured that there’s more than enough to come.
Chenille was riding really badly, almost as if it didn’t have wheels. It was intensely vibrating and louder than a B&M invert. Oh and it kept starting and stopping randomly on the lift. I’m not sure this caterpillar is going to last another winter…
Roller Coaster
Up next was the imaginatively named Roller Coaster, a Zierer Tivoli that looked brand new and this time was installed on concrete instead of the usual “in some trees” setting, I quite liked it.
I spent the entire ride sliding about in a car to myself while practicing the Soquet shuffle, and I liked that too.
We’d just ticked off 2 of the 3 things we visited the park for in less than 20 minutes, so we decided it would be best to slow down a little and check out some of the other attractions at the park. This would come back to haunt us…
The first of which was La Grande Roue, the park’s Ferris Wheel, which offered nice views of the park and surrounding area all while also setting the mood by blasting party music. There was some kind of event on today, despite the park being almost empty, and it would culminate with an “exceptional concert” later in the day.
La Rivière Enchantée was the next and final of the “might as well” rides we stumbled upon. It was a slow moving boat ride past pretty scenery and gnomes, operated by a friendly Irish man. Isn’t it nice to find time to relax in parks these days? If only we knew what was going to happen…
I’m pleased to say that after the slight let down of Dragon Chinois, that the French boys were back on form today and that I had a great time in the deep seats of Train de la Mine.
With that our visit to Papéa Parc came to an end, but not before we’d accidentally walk past the “exceptional concert” in all of its glory.
One man on a small stage DJ’ing for a crowd of 4 people, who weren’t paying attention, while 2 people, we think his parents, were sitting on the stage infront of him, also not paying attention, and it was at that exact moment that I knew in my heart that I liked Papéa Parc. A chilled morning of fun rides and a nice atmosphere indeed ending with an exceptional concert.
Festyland
The second park of the day would be Festyland, another small family park, located around 2 hours from Papéa Parc. We were still doing great for time in our minds so once again foolishly opted to take things slow.
Drakkar Express
2 Soquets back to back, are you teasing me?
Drakkar Express was great fun, adding a little bit of intensity to the expected and excellent sliding around experience I demand from my Soquets. The coaster also looked fantastic, with a nicely themed station and queueline and well presented coaster section.
Now though it was time for the main event. All the Soquets that came before it were merely warm ups compared to the might of 1066. The tallest (jointly) and fastest (probably) non travelling (we will get back to that) Soquet in the World!
Themed to the well documented moment in history when William The Conqueror defeated Harold Godwinson and conquered England by deploying a large ram onto the battlefield. The coaster’s station contains the actual Bayeux Tapestry as well as a wheelbarrow used during the battle itself.
Joking aside, 1066 is awesome and it was great to see the boys at Soquet dabble with adding more speed and intensity to their layouts, this coupled with the picturesque setting made for a great experience. I’d love to have gotten another lap in but as you’ll find out soon things didn’t go to plan.
Park complete and time to spare we decided just like at Papéa Parc to experience some of Festy’s “might as well” attractions. The first of which was Eretic, a large Zamperla frisbee flat ride that was pretty great and offered good positives and plenty of airtime moments.
The next and final would be Kaskade, an elevator lift Zamperla rapids ride that intrigued us offride by how insanely fast the boats were spinning as they made their descent.
While queuing, 20 minutes if I remember rightly, we all got chatting about the park schudule over the coming days. There was 1 park that Heartline couldn’t place on any day, it was Ange Michel and it was about to cause us a world of hurt.
Kaskade was indeed insane and span us to the point of uncontrollable laughter.
While me and Heartline’s wife were laughing, discussing the previous peril and examining the damage as we got off of Kaskade, Heartline himself launched off into the distance with a look of pure panic on his face. When I managed to catch up to him I asked him what was wrong, “we need to leave, we should be at Ange Michel…”.
With that we all left the park as fast as we could and made our way back to the car. Time for some maths… If we leave right now, we will reach Ange Michel 15 minutes before it closes…
Clearly that wasn’t the best of plans, so we began frantically moving things around to make sure Ange Michel could happen, not because we really wanted to visit the park, more so because we took it personally that we’d made such a stupid mistake.
After we confused ourselves for 10 minutes and still got nowhere, Heartline remembered something I mentioned earlier. There was an alpine coaster not too far from here, so let’s put a pin in Ange Michel and get the second bonus cred of the trip.
Oh wait yeah, Festyland, I enjoyed it, nice park, fun rides and a chilled atmosphere, now let’s break out of here.
Clécy Gliss
The sat nav took us on a brutal drive to Clécy Gliss, up many tight single track mountain roads before it finally took us to effectively a dead end. Half a mile from the “park” we were faced with another single track road, a 30% decline and this time a no entry sign.
As tempting as it honestly was to ignore the sign we thought better of it and decided to leave the car at the top of the hill and continue on foot. It became apparent just how steep this hill was as we shuffled down it, the real challenge would be getting back up though, but that’s for future me to worry about me.
Clézy Gliss
At the bottom of the hill we found the alpine coaster, named Clézy Gliss and almost nothing else.
Clézy Gliss would be our first Brandauer made alpine coaster, we had more planned for later in the trip so this would be a nice introduction to the new set up. More so because the layout was nothing special and was basically a series of zig zags back down the hill.
So how was it? Was it better than a Wiegand? Well yes and no. Yes because the single rail aspect made everything feel even more unsafe than a Wiegand and yes this is a plus point. No because the design of the Brandauer cars made it very hard for someone with short arms to operate the controls properly. We would become aware later in the trip when we rode another Brandauer that when single riders use the cars a booster backrest needs to used, so actually this was Clécy Gliss’ fault, so actually Brandauers are better than Wiegands and I’ve just wasted everyone’s time.
I truly believed 2021 was going to be very different from the awful year that preceded it, the more I think about it though, the more I realise just how similar they were.
First off, yet again me and Heartline had to cancel our trip to the US. I was convinced things would be sorted enough to make the journey by June 2021, but it just wasn’t to be. Neither was it when we rescheduled the trip to July, heartbreaking doesn’t quite cover it.
Secondly, much like the previous year, once things finally did start to open up again the only obvious course of action was a multi week trip across Europe, this time though it was going to be even longer, 22 days to be exact, a new record.
In my mind at least the trip would be split into 4 clear sections…
Ticking off coasters in French parks I’d never heard of.
Exploring many of the so called “Summer Funfairs” in France.
Finally getting to visit parks that Heartline had visited and I was dying to see.
Heading back to previously visited parks to experience their new coasters.
That’s enough set up, now grab your medical mask and meet me at the border.
Day 1
I remember the days of moaning about having to wake up at 3am to drive to the Channel Tunnel, but after being trapped on this island for what feels like forever I was buzzing with excitement to make the journey. We were expecting issues thanks to Covid and Brexit but we flew straight through onto the train, still hands down the best way to experience Europe.
Parc du Bocasse
The first park of the trip was Parc du Bocasse, a small family park a couple of hours from Calais that we had visited before in 2018. We were back today because the park had since opened 2 new coasters and we had managed to miss their dark ride on our rushed previous visit.
Things were tense when we arrived at the park entrance to see a large rabble of people queuing to show their Covid passes. I’d read many stories online of British people having issues in France with both their digital and paper based Covid passes. My logic here was, if this works we are set for everything the trip has to offer, if this doesn’t then things are about to get very awkward and expensive. Thankfully though all 3 of our digital passes were accepted almost too easily and we were cleared to enter the park.
Orochi
Orochi is the park’s newest coaster and depending on who you ask their new star attraction.
The coaster is a Vekoma SFC, the 10th clone of the currently largest layout, a layout that’s just about large enough for even the most jaded of coaster fans to find some enjoyment in.
What impressed me most about Orochi though is just how great it looks. The theming around the coaster looks fantastic and for reasons unknown I’m incredibly attached to it’s interesting colour scheme.
With Orochi tamed, it was time to tick off Bocasse’s other new (to us) coaster, Pirate’s Coaster. This tiny Preston & Barbieri coaster was struggling to stop in the station (I doubt it’s got anything to with us though…) meaning we were treated to countless laps while the poor ride operator tried her best to regain control.
Next up was Apiland, the previously mentioned dark ride that we missed last time and looking at the exterior you can see why, it looks more like an educational exhibit or a soft play area than the park’s only dark ride.
Despite the less than inviting exterior, Apiland was great. This huge dark ride themed to bees was long, fun, full of charm and most importantly had a kick ass soundtrack.
Fort d’Odin
We ended our re-visit to the park with a courtesy lap on Fort d’Odin, this Soquet coaster had recently been fully rethemed and much like Orochi looks fantastic. This is my personal favourite coaster in the park, there’s just something fun about sliding around in the deep seats of a Soquet that you can’t do anywhere else. Odin would thankfully be the first in a long line of Soquets on the trip and was the perfect place to start.
With that our quick re-visit to Parc du Bocasse was over and once again I had a great time at the park. While they have nothing all that exciting attraction wise, the park looks great, the staff are friendly, the atmosphere is spot on and that counts for a lot these days.
Jardin d’Acclimatation
About an hour and a half from Bocasse, in almost central Paris, is a park that we’d been forced to put off several times over the past few years. It’s name is Jardin d’Acclimatation (I can’t say it properly either) and today we’d finally get to experience it.
Being a city park, and that city being Paris, we were slightly concerned about finding parking nearby but thankfully there was a road near the park with plenty of spaces and better yet it was reasonably priced.
Jardin requires a ticket to enter and then tokens or a wristband to experience the attractions. We went with the package called the Grand 8, mostly because we found it funny but also because it granted you entry and just enough tokens to do everything we wanted.
Speed Rockets
The first of which was Speed Rockets, a custom Gerstlauer Bobsled that I’d had my eye on for a while.
This trip featured many custom Gerstlauer Bobsleds and the running joke was each one ended up being the best yet.
Why was Speed Rockets the best yet? Because it was designed by a crazy person who managed to take a generally meh family coaster and turn it into a twisted mess of wtf moments. This short but insanely snappy coaster has among other silly twisty moments, a double-down first drop, high speed Immelmann and multiple sideways airtime hills.
It was a real shame that due to the limitations of the Grand 8 we were only able to ride Speed Rockets once but it’s more than fair to say that it left its mark on me.
We noticed now that due to the park being busier than we expected that our reasonably priced parking was starting to get tight, we should be fine though, as long as there are no hold ups anywhere…
Machine à Vapeur
Next up was the second Soquet of the day, this time a powered one named Machine à Vapeur, I honestly think it might accidentally be the best coaster at Jardin.
What starts off as your typical sliding about and loving it Soquet experience quickly turns into something absolutely terrifying. Nearing the end of the lap (yes you experience this multiple times) you gain massive speed before you drop down into a tunnel, this provides a nice pop of air and was way more intense than I was expecting, but that wasn’t the best bit. It’s as you fly back up out of the tunnel that things go very wrong. You are violently ejected and then immediately thrown left in hilarious fashion and there’s literally nothing you can do to avoid it. It’s brutal, it’s stupid, it’s amazing and I love it.
After checking none of our bones were broken, we checked the time, things were still looking real tense in regards to parking but we’d probably still make it right?
LeKinétorium
Thanks to Heartline’s new ties to the Dark Ride Database, this trip we’d end up experiencing attractions that we might have otherwise overlooked, the first of which would end up being Le Kinétorium. This interactive theatre style attraction has you shooting at targets on a screen while the seat you are on moves around to match the action on screen.
It was really good fun and the seat moved around way more than I expecting providing some truly funny moments of me coming inches from falling off. At the end of the attraction your photos are taken and your rankings are displayed on the screen, me and Heartline came 2nd and 3rd respectively, which isn’t bad going when I spent most of the time laughing and trying not to fall off.
It looked like we had just enough time to do the last 2 coasters and briskly leave before the parking ran out. With that in mind we quickly headed over to Souris Mécaniques, only to find out that it was temporarily closed…
Knowing that we now had to top up the parking we decided to leave via the opposite end of the park than where we entered, in order to see if Dragon Chinois was open or not. Earlier in the day we looked on the website and it stated that the coaster wouldn’t open again till March but we weren’t sure if we believed it or not.
The coaster was testing with a large crowd queuing up outside when we got there, so we left Heartline’s wife to assess the situation while we went to sort the parking.
We got to the other entrance and asked a friendly member of staff if it would be OK to quickly run out and sort the parking. She told us that it’s not policy but she’d gladly let us back in if we were quick. 3 other members of staff were watching this interaction, this is important information…
So we went and put another hour or so on the parking and quickly headed back to the entrance, on route I got a text from Heartline’s wife saying she was in the Dragon Chinois queue and that we needed to hurry.
On arrivial at the entrance, the lady we had spoken to 10 minutes ago had left and been replaced by another. We told the new member of staff that we literally just ran to the car and we were told it wouldn’t be an issue. She looked confused but also willing to help, she just had to ask the other members of staff, you know, the 3 who just watched us leave.
“Have you ever seen these 2 before?” we think she asked, “never in my life” we think one of them replied. He then decided to storm over, look at our tickets which said they were purchased 1 and a half hours ago and then start ranting at us about how he cannot let us back in the park and that we needed to buy 2 new entry only tickets if we wished to re-enter. Thankfully we managed to get our original tickets back because they still had valid ride tokens on them.
12 Euros and 5 minutes of parking wasted, an unpleasant experience all round and all because 1 man needed to go on a power trip… I’m not going to let this affect my opinion of the park but my opinion of him is that he’s an asshole.
Dragon Chinois
Back in the park and reunited it was time to experience the 3rd Soquet of the day, Dragon Chinois.
I wasn’t feeling this one anywhere near as much as the other 2. It was too short to have the sliding about jet coaster feel of Odin and it was nowhere near as brutal as Machine à Vapeur, although it did have moments where it felt as though it was trying it’s best to throw us about. Either way it must be noted that I like his face and nothing will ever take that away.
Finally Souris Mécaniques was open and after a rather unpleasant and long queue it was time for me to experience my first ever Reverchon junior spinner and it was far better than it had any right to be. Riding on my own, due to 2 adults max per car, I managed to get an insane spin going, that coupled with not knowing the layout led to me laughing uncontrollably until I hit the brake run. I can only imagine what passers-by must have thought but it didn’t matter because I was loving it.
With everything we wanted to ride complete, we had enough tokens left on our Grand 8 for 1 more ride on the slightly disappointing Chinese Dragon with the long queue, the insane spinning mechanical mouse with the even longer queue or the steam train of death with no queue at all, it’s a no brainer right?
Back to Machine à Vapeur we went and if anything it was even more brutal this time, with even less chance of averting the carnage, did I say that I loved it already?
Still choosing to ignore the idiot on admissions, I rather enjoyed my visit to Jardin. The ride line up is solid and very unique, the park is very well presented and the staff while not exactly friendly were extremely efficient and worked hard to keep the queues down on all the rides.
On the way to our hotel for the night I spotted a small kiddy coaster set up at the side of the road and shouted, half jokingly, at Heartline to pull over, he did and it led to us obtaining possibly the best +1 in the industry.
Apparently it was some funfair exclusively for children, or as far as we could tell at least, but it was almost completely deserted and had a real ghetto feel to it. What’s the harm in asking we thought, surely only comedy can come from this, and it did…
Le petit train de la mine
I was concerned at first that the coaster wouldn’t be on Coaster-Count and that we would have to get it added, which would have involved taking pictures at a ghetto childrens funfair, which wouldn’t have been ideal. Thankfully though, and almost unbelieveably, the coaster was on there and better yet it had no riders to it’s name. That settles it, we must ride it now.
The coaster itself was clearly designed for children but also appeared to have been designed by a sadist. It was tracked all kinds of wrong, with transitions that didn’t even appear possible, nevertheless we took our seats and were taken on the ride of our lives.
I was thrown around in hilarious fashion and at times was struggling to breathe through unstoppable laughter, which only got more intense when one of the train doors opened mid-ride and the operator booted it shut as we came through the station.
The situation got even funnier when out of nowhere, mid-lap, Heartline let out an intense scream of real pain. Upon turning around to see what had happened he could only respond to my many questions with “I think I’ve drawn blood” and that was enough to put me out of commission for the next 3 laps of intense comedy.
Later on in the day Heartline showed me his wounds and they were rather impressive, but it was all worth it, because to this day, we are still the only 2 people to have ridden the coaster on Coaster-Count.
Thanks for reading, click here for day 2, where we visit Papéa Parc and Festyland.
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.
Having completely exhausted all the options of daytime parks in the region, there was nothing left to do but have a well earned lie in, play some mini golf and do some sightseeing.
The location of choice was the Verdon Gorge.
With tons of massive birds hovering in the sky.
The sort of place that pictures (well, mine at least) don’t really do justice. It was all rather breathtaking though, particularly if you take part in some foolish daredevil antics like walking along one of the narrow stone walls above a 1000ft drop, or climbing out onto precarious rocks that overhang the fast flowing river below. I somehow managed to scare myself more than the Lou Bac Luge.
After that excitement there was one more crawl of evening parks to complete on our last night in France. Day 10 – Azur Park
Which began with a surprise. The originally billed Super Railway (a single rail Schwarzkopf wild mouse) had been swapped for something equally interesting, the legendary travelling Soquet, King. I believe it’s the biggest coaster they ever made.
We had arrived for opening and they clearly weren’t ready however, so it was time for another #1 La Pomme, with spare train faces for decoration.
Lost about an hour waiting for them to finally open it up, but that did mean it turned into a night ride. #2 King toes the line nicely between intensity and brutality. The second half feels way too fast for the momentum it’s carrying (including random Yoda graffiti tunnel), almost like they didn’t know what to do with something this size. The result is rather spectacular in an ‘it’s different’ kinda way, if a little rough round the edges.
Oh look, a #3 Crazy Mouse.
Running late now, on to the next park.
Lunapark Fréjus
Oh look, a #4 Crazy Mouse. Oddly enough, this one’s a Beijing Jiuhua model, which means no double up or speed bump, those elements are far too advanced.
I’d been waiting all week for the night that #5 Magic Mountain would show up, never remembering which park it was at.
Not sure why it had particularly caught my attention, something about this stripy inclined loop makes it stand out a bit I guess. It’s a Top Fun Typhoon, whatever that may be, and it gives Tornado a run for its money on trying to beat you up. All that fuss for nothing.
Or maybe I was just too softened up by this point. Even #6 Tokaido Express, this rare 1st gen Mack Powered coaster with single file seating was trying to hurt me. It does about 100 laps in either ‘fast’ or ‘slow’ mode and it’s highly unnecessary.
#7 Train Gourmand was a bit of a mission. It’s part of a separate kids lineup of rides that requires tokens instead of cash, but is located miles away from any of the rest of said rides, along with the desk that sells said tokens.
Still more to endure though.
Antibes Land
Classic Mack #8 Wild Mouse. Used to live in Japan and then at Walygator, maybe it came as a bonus with Monster?
Having never ridden an EOS spinning coaster until just recently at Gullivers, I’ve now managed to pick up a second. #9 Turtle’s Coaster is still better than the SBFs and this one had the added excitement of the operator providing a bonus manual spin each time it came through the station.
And, to end France in style, a #10 Pomme. This one had the added excitement of the operator providing a bonus balloon for certain guests to ride with.
Had a bit of Jacquou déjà vu the following morning, while queuing outside this catchily named place. Once again it took forever to get in, though this time there were two unfathomably long lines that actually went to different places – pre-booked or on the day. The car park was made of the worst surface imaginable and took some serious off-roading to even navigate. Off to a good start.
Off to a very good start. This Pinfari is named #1 Strom, which I like to believe is in tribute to the legend that is Strom Chaser. It’s also terrible.
Things almost got extremely Jacquou Parc here, as by the time we reached the second attraction of the day, after being amongst the first guests on park, the spinning mouse was ready to close for ‘lunchtime’. Luckily this time around we managed to squeeze in just as the rope was put in place after us. Once again it created a huge conflict between staff and the guests who were being told they can’t ride a major attraction for 90 minutes, no more than an hour into their experience. I don’t get it. This Fabbri is named #2 Formula 1, probably as it has a lot in common with the sport. It’s also terrible.
We continued to dodge the staggered lunchtime closures and hit the ghost train, Magic Mystery House next. I will of course ride these when I don’t have to specifically fork out for them. It’s also terrible.
Was #3 Shark Trip the best ride of the park? Probably. Something about weighting issues and the fact that it made several children cry and then not board meant that the train was dispatched with just our party of 3 adults on board, while a disproportionately large queue looked on in disgust.
All in a day’s work.
OK Corral
This was the main park for the day, the park themed to the old West, not that that narrows it down much. I’d had it on my radar a few years now, ever since riding Gipfelstürmer and subsequently wanting to complete the rather obscure set of Gerstlauer family shuttle coasters.
And so the visit began at #4 Gold Rush.
It starts like a normal boomerang, completes one full circuit around the top and then another half, before stopping on the reverse ‘spike’ and doing a backwards half. Basically you get a longer and better ride out of it than you would on the German Goat or at Adventure City where the third version lives, and even as standard they’re much better than the Vekomas. For the briefest of glorious moments I now have the full collection, with both Korea and Australia about to spoil it for me, any second.
Next up was this fascinating piece of kit. I had it in my head after Spirou that #5 Pioneer was yet another Force One, but it’s actually one of the very few custom Zierer ESC 535s . It also has unique trains, with the front 6 seats being horses and the rear 6 being a carriage.
It’s quite a nice terrain layout with a couple more attempts at airtime and twisty moments than the standard model. The carriage suffers from the exact same rattle that the others develop, but the horses are a winner. I was dreading them as I usually do for any ‘motocoaster’ experience but they’re completely different in design, with no horrible back clamps forcing you into an uncomfortable position. If anything it rode more like a stand-up, nice and exposed. I liked it.
Final coaster was #6 Serpent Hopi, a Tivoli large as a snake.
And a dark ride called Mystères de l’Ouest, a decently paced (for once) ghost train style attraction with a western theme to fit the park. Well, until the end, when 4 or 5 cars were stacking outside the station leaving people stuck in the last scare for multiple takes.
We were told by the friendly admissions staff not to miss ‘the show later’, so heeded their advice and settled down in the arena once all the rides were done.
It was underwhelming to say the least, though probably alright for the budget – I am rather spoilt when it comes to this stuff. A bit of a twist on cowboys vs Indians with some mild horsey action. I didn’t manage to follow the storyline. One bloke wanted them all to co-exist in peace, performed a ‘traditional’ dance, then the cowboys all got beaten up and it ended.
We lasted most of the day here, which was nice. It had a genuine and friendly vibe, a solid and interesting lineup of not quite just +1s and a decent coherent theme.
Funny Land
This park was known only to me as the 1am Wacky Worm, because it is just a Wacky Worm, one that stays open until 1am.
Wait a minute. This is no ordinary Wacky Worm. #7 Crazy Chenille is the rare type with the diagonal lift hill, a straight big dip and a more violent final drop. Class.
Once again the night ended on a big funfair affair.
Magic World
Not sure I can handle any more magic in one day, but I like the sign.
Oh look, a spinning wild mouse. #8 Mouse Coaster also killed us. They’re obviously not afraid to run them hot in the south of France.
#9 Banzai is just silly. A massive and pointless U-shaped shuttle coaster. It performs a teasing first sequence of reverse lift hill, drop, then coasts back and forth for at least 5 minutes with no braking until it comes to a natural stop. Is that it? No. It then performs another lap, but this time it starts a bit higher up the spike, drops, then coasts for at least 5 minutes with no braking until it comes to a natural stop. Oh, and the combination of shoulder restraints and weird lap bar is awful.
At least they have a #10 Magic Pomme with an oversized inflatable to end the night on a high.
The following day began here, where I started to get the sense that every park in this part of the world contains the word Pirat, Luna or Magic.
Just a humble +1 on the cards, #1 Train de la Mine is a surprisingly lively SBF Visa that isn’t a spinner.
Moving swiftly on. Parc Spirou
This was the main destination for the day, the relatively new park themed to Spirou Comics. I’d had it on my radar for a few years now, back when the original plans included a Zierer Tower coaster like Impulse or Wicked, which would have been exciting. Seems it wasn’t to be, instead they ended up with one of everything from the smaller half of Zierer’s back catalogue.
The Force Zero, #2 En avant Seccotine.
The Force Two, #3 Wanted Dalton.
And the Force One, #4 Spirou Racing (#1100).
This one ended up being my 1100th coaster, mainly down to lack of any better options. It might well be my most boring milestone yet, a clone of a ride from Schwaben Park. They’re alright as a model, those ‘inspired’ raised open trains are rather nice, but they do seem to develop quite a rattle after a few years, which in turn saps away any force it once had.
Alongside the coaster selection, the park so far felt pretty bland. There’s a slightly off air to it, having had 3 years to bed in it still feels a bit sparse and sterile and none of the guests seemed to be having a particularly good time, sweating away in poorly shaded queues.
Luckily there’s a dark ride to breathe a bit more character into the place.
I’m not sure how best to describe Gaffe á Gaston other than three simulator pods in front of a screen.
Maybe the comic will do it for me. The film is basically a POV of the bloke on his weird suspended chair that travels around an office environment causing various mishaps. The ride concludes with him delivering a message to a romantic interest, she seems impressed and then walks off as he turns to a mirror and says “m’enfin?” (finally). It was funnier and more entertaining than I’ve made it sound, but it ain’t no Vienne Dynamique.
Also like Schwaben Park, they have a Roller Ball. #5 Nid des Marsupilamis doesn’t even come with a killer soundtrack and is just as pointless of a ride experience.
Seems every immersive tunnel in the world has to be themed to dinosaurs, including Super Groom et les Dinozorgs.
Even if it is based on an comic that doesn’t look like it needed to be themed to that at all. I struggled to follow this one. Some professor bloke with a time machine, this superhero boy and his flying squirrel companion versus some dinosaurs and an evil man who I think is Dalton, of Walibi Belgium drop tower fame.
Talking of drop towers, somehow the day was already through and we had to sprint to get a last ride on Zombillénium Tower, so apologies, no pictures. It’s one of those big, cool Funtime ones with the nice restraints. It does some scary tilting things on the way up but not for the actual drop sequence, which surprised me. Good though.
I’ve since learnt that the Zombillénium name (whatever it is) was supposed to go to a trackless dark ride, so add that to the list of things that didn’t open which are now holding this place back. Surely they could have just not bought the roller ball or something, as it was built to make a pointless statement (unique in Europe, of two, and of a ride type no one should really care about), which only lasted a year anyway.
Only having three parks in a day now seems relatively relaxing and the last stop was another late night funfair that, for obvious time reasons, didn’t quite make the cut the previous night. Amigoland
#6 Jumbo Jet is an even bigger one of those single-file Schwarzkopf beasts. Apparently this one was once built, but never operated, at Six Flags Great Adventure. It feels very open at the top of that spiral lift hill and the number of cars on track was a spectacle to behold all in itself. Thrilling, forceful, fun. Had it all really. This being the best coaster of the day again proves how Spirou need to up their game a bit.
There was also a bonus #7 La Pomme on park to keep things perfectly balanced, as all things should be. I think that made 5 of these in a 24 hour period.
From just 1 coaster in a day to almost unfathomable amounts, this one’s a bit of a marathon.
Day 7 – Naturlandia
It all began at the primary reason for visiting Andorra, the park collection of equipment that includes the world’s longest (Alpine) coaster. Nice setting for it.
Immediately didn’t get on with the place as we essentially got ripped off. Due to the fast and loose nature of the trip as a whole, the pre-booking of the various necessary attractions was left as late as possible in most cases so that we could continually monitor each and every border situation.
We had tried to book the Alpine a few days prior but found that the time slots we wanted (any time in the morning) were unavailable. Turn up and wing it was the verdict. Surely with the capacity of a ride like that it can’t be completely sold out.
So on the day, queuing for tickets, a bloke walks up to us with a tablet and asks what we’re there for. “Tobotronc mate.” “Did you book online?” “No, we couldn’t get the time what we wanted.” “Ah… wait here.”
He ran off to the ticket window to conspire with the sales team and came hurrying back. We can do this for you but… you can’t buy tickets for the ride, you’ll have to get the adventure wristband. Unfortunately for us, while an adult ticket for the ride is advertised as €15, a wristband is €35.
Upon reaching the window, “Tobotronc please.” Same lame repeated speech. “Fair enough, I’ll buy whatever gets us on Tobotronc please.” The sales woman instantly flares up as if I’m trying to rip her off, not the other way round. “I TOLD YOU IT HAS TO BE THE WRISTBAND.” Just… take the money already.
There was nothing remotely interesting about the other attractions available on the wristband, which comprised of jumping on a big bag of air, going on a nature trail while staring at a tablet or climbing some ropes. Nor did we have the time to mess around with it. Though our timeslot for Tobotronc was only 20 minutes away anyway we took a quick look at some big dune buggy things (everybody loves dune buggies) you could drive, expecting something insane to happen like launching off some jumps at 50Mph. Instead it’s a course of ‘skill’, meaning all you get to do is a single lap of pottering around some bumps at 1Mph while the instructor shouts at you to slow down. Nope.
Tobotronc had no queue, so that timeslot system was a load of gimmicks and lies.
Ah well, it’s why we came to this country. The bottom station is located at the 1600m part of the establishment, where you board and are told it’ll take about 20 minutes in total. That’s crazy.
90% of the experience is this view of course, and it’s sure to give you a bad back.
I occupied myself with some onboard photography, here’s someone being slowed down through one of the 6000 downhill turns.
Reverse POV lift hill shot.
You get the occasional glimpse of the amazing views beyond, though most of the ride is hidden within the forest.
Still going.
Finally, the second station at the 2000m point of the mountain. It begins.
#1 Tobotronc is 17,388ft long which, to put into perspective, is over twice the length of Steel Dragon. It’s also not done at 95Mph at any point, so it drags on far longer. The ride is ridiculous, impressive and definitely worth experiencing, but it’s far from the best Alpine out there. It gets rather repetitive obviously, with a lot of the layout blurring into one and the same. Straight with a little bump, downhill turn, rinse and repeat, and the views don’t really change either.
Sadly this was also the first ever time I’ve run into the problem of catching up with the competition in front and this really isn’t the one on which you want that to happen, though it’s likely inevitable. The result is having to spend at least half the ride continuously easing off, then speeding up to compensate for the pace in front.
Worth the 35? Just about, if only for the immense scale of the thing and its legendary status. Shouldn’t have needed to be though.
It was time to get out of Andorra before they could do any more damage, though we swung past this scenic bridge on the way.
Back in the mountains of France, it was time for a better Alpine experience.
Lou Bac Mountain
Right off the bat, this thing is better, because it has such a cool system.
The vehicles sit on their little trolley and ride up in a cable car with you.
While the views are just about as impressive and a little less obstructed.
And yes, it’s another of those terrifying single rail versions, only insanely huge.
It’s also brand new, and one of only 5 Sunkid have made so far since acquiring the model from Brandauer.
The cars are wheeled off of the trolley and onto this amazing piece of kit that auto shunts them around and queues them up on different rows depending on the throughput.
The #2 Lou Bac Mountain Luge is legitimately one of the scariest rides I’ve ever done. A thought suddenly dawned on me, as I plunged down into the first section, that there’s really not much keeping me on this piece of plastic. If you’re riding solo, you get a squidgy little booster seat that pushes you out from the back rest in order to reach the handle easier. Because it’s a central brake handle and not the relaxed ones at the side, you’re also continuously in the lean forward position. This makes it feel extremely open on either side, with nothing but a standard little seatbelt keeping you from plunging down a mountainside. There’s some ridiculous claim on the website that the track achieves angles of 70° and I’m inclined to believe it. Certain drops are far more intense than you’d ever get on a Wiegand (including the incredible Speed Bob) and you can pick up some insane momentum very quickly which, combined with any lateral forces on the turns will do its best to try and kill you. The ride was a gamechanger for me in that the level of fear on these things has now switched from ‘can the physical hardware take it if I don’t use the brakes?’ to ‘will I just fall out and die if I don’t use the brakes?’ It takes a lot for a ride to put me out of my comfort zone these days and this delivered that by the bucket load. I was screaming, laughing nervously and loving/hating it the whole way down. Incredible.
It was now time to swap the mountain air for some seaside parks, in the most ambitious run of 8pm – 2am summer fairs so far.
Pirat’ Parc
Proceedings began at Pirat’ Parc, where the sun was just setting and an atmosphere was starting to build.
After scouting out the number of tokens required, we climbed aboard the largest of the coasters here, #3 Gold Mine, a rare custom Reverchon that’s a standard sit down.
The operators here were in such a party mood, switching on their various amps for the first time and blaring out some tunes before laying down some killer moves in the walkways while waiting for customers to arrive for the night. Oh, and the ride was really good for what it is too. Unusually smooth with a couple of good drops.
The wild mouse style #4 Mini Racer was the next in a long list of rides that tried to kill us. I half came out of the side in one of the many violent turns. An instant classic.
As was this amazing #5 Cars ride. I expected just a clone of that baby coaster at E-World in Korea, without the singing, but that shipping container at the back… things happen in there. Mind blowing things.
Spoiler
The train stops dead inside the shipping container on the final lap and the doors close at both ends. Smoke fills the room. To the right, a flap opens up and several police car headlights appear, blaring their horns. The whole track section suddenly then tilts you to the side, towards them!
Last up was #6 Big Apple with a good apple game, that inflatable caterpillar bouncing up and down out of the side was a right laugh.
And that’s the great thing about these parks. What RCDB would have you thinking was a +1 becomes an instant (and memorable) +4 with the extra travelling rides. Next?
Parc d’Attractions Marseillan-Plage
I can’t even remember these places by name any more, I think this checks out.
Pink Zyklon Galaxis appear to be all the rage these days, as demonstrated by #7 Roller Coaster.
Hang on. I recognise this layout. Tres turbulent?
Oh no! We’ve found Tornado from M&Ds in it’s new home. I’m hoping I can complete their entire lineup one day without even visiting the park. #8 Gotham looks rather good with a fresh lick of paint on it, but will it kill? I’ve done worse. Far worse, though I dread to think what the removed corkscrews would have been like. The most violent part ended up being the weird hill up in the air across the front edge, which has some horrible banking on entry. Silly Pinfari.
Sorry, previous Big Apple.
Your animated caterpillar game just got beaten by another #9 Big Apple.
We got impressively lost on the way to the next park, which further backs up that they all start to look the same.
Luna Park
Haven’t we just done this? Well this is where I learnt for the first time that they’re not all the same. This particular #10 Roller-Coaster had different hills at the end and, interestingly, is the only operating coaster on RCDB made by Mondial, of flat ride fame.
They also have #11 Apocalypse, a Vekoma Corkscrew (with Bayerncurve). Not your average funfair ride. Not good either.
And for the third time tonight, a #12 Luna Pomme. This one was most notable for having a swinging ship that came insanely close to the top of the layout while it was in motion.
Got room for one more?
Fabrikus World
Oh look, a #13 Crazy Mouse to shake things up a bit. This one was on par with the best spins we’ve ever had. So fast and so hard that you can’t even see any more, then that final section with the speed bump just murders.
They also have #14 Euro Loop, a clone of Python from Efteling. Not your average funfair ride. Not good either.
We thought #15 Eurospeed was a stock model Mack Powered coaster, but it turned out to have an impressive, unique layout.
And, to finish the night on a high, one more #16 Pomme. This one was most notable for being the 16th coaster of the day, a new personal record that surpassed Energylandia 2020 for most creds. I’m infinitely more happy that this was achieved across a ridiculous distance and six parks compared to a lazy stroll around just the one establishment. That’s how records are meant to be broken. Don’t you dare go and ruin it, Cedar Point.
