Just the one coaster in this part, along with a lot of travel and a bit of sightseeing. Not really good enough is it.
Day 6 – Anatolia Parc
Who knew that there was a Chinese-built worm coaster in central France? Not me. Of course I had to go and ride it though. Upon entering the shop to buy entrance tickets, a man who I shall refer to as Mr. Anatolia Parc saw right through our game and immediately started chatting coasters with us. “You’re here to test the worm?” “Yes we are.” “Are you going to test the Namazu? It’s a new Intamin Coaster.” “We already have, it was great!” This man clearly knows his stuff.
He warmly instructed us to head towards the back of the park where we found #1 Chenille in all its glory. Moments later he joined us on the platform, ready to run the ride. “Have you been to Mont Mosan?” “I… um… no <visible confusion>. Not yet. I’ll add it to the list.” Upon later research we discovered that it was too late for that. Mont Mosan was a park in Belgium that once hosted exactly the same ride type – perhaps where he got his fantastic business idea from. Sadly that one no longer exists. What a legend though.
Oh, the ride. Brutal.
Overjoyed with that encounter, it was time for a very long drive to our next destination. On route I had my heart set on seeing the ridiculous Millau Viaduct, a bridge I’ve admired for many years, as close-up as possible.
So we drove right underneath it. Look at it. Over 1000ft tall. Beat that Intamin.
Before finding a pretty spot to gaze upon it from afar.
Which happened to be in this fascinating village that’s actually built into the side of a cliff.
We then drove over said bridge, which was amazing, and many hours later hit the border to a new country cred, deep (high?) in the Pyrenees. Sadly not the B&M Invert.
Andorra has:
Ridiculously low fuel prices (well, for Europe).
Big old mountains.
Some old churches.
One of the biggest spas in Europe, also their tallest building. Don’t ask how.
And as is the tradition in all new countries, an Andorra cat.
What a burden this place was. We arrived for opening to join a reasonably sized queue of guests lining up to buy entrance tickets. It moved incredibly slowly, though not covid related as there was a man moving up and down the queue scanning qr codes as he went along, so it was purely on the speed of two ticket windows that we didn’t get inside the park until an hour after it first opened.
The first thing we came across was #1 Sombrero, a highly questionable coaster at best. You can spin the car as you go around, just like a teacups ride, which is rather novel and makes up for the terrible speed of the layout.
And by the time we had finished one attraction and walked over to the spinning mouse, one of the ride hosts had come down the queue and closed it for ‘lunch time’ right in our faces, 10 minutes before the time advertised on the sign and a mere half an hour after those amongst the ‘first guests’ had even been on park. A small disgruntled queue of various families immediately formed behind us in unified dismay at this act and all proceeded to give the evils to the staff member and shout that it wasn’t even 12:00 yet. He looked visibly nervous and shifty about what he’d just done, but wouldn’t change his stance on the matter.
#2 Speedy Gonzales the worm (mouse?) across the way was still open for business, so we got that out of the way.
Now, because of the 90-minute lunchtime closure, there was literally nothing to do but leave the place and entertain ourselves with a 15 minute rally stage each way to get our own lunch, wasting time until we could complete the poxy park.
A different operator eventually reopened #3 Crazy Coaster, no doubt saving his colleague from the many disgruntled guests who now had it in for him. He was back on station exit though, still looking super guilty about it.
Turns out that shambles was probably my 1000th steel coaster as well, a distinction I’ve never bothered kept track of. Bah.
Parc Fenestre
Next up was this much nicer establishment in the recreational area of a small, scenic town. It was a little confusing to navigate, with the first point of entry having only a small stall at which you could seemingly only buy ride wristbands, while having absolutely no attractions in sight and with no indication that pay-per-ride was also an option.
After a long uphill slog of a journey (don’t go downhill, there’s nothing there but extra walking), things become a bit clearer and there are two locations amongst the attractions at which you can buy the jetons you need for any ride.
The only ride we were after was #4 Cacahuète Express, Soquet’s most recent build after a hiatus of 7 years, an unpainted powered coaster with a donkey on the train.
Kicks Jacquou Parcs ass.
They also have real donkeys, not in hats, though I tried to improvise one someone who’s a fan of that type of thing.
Vulcania
Finally we moved on to another major establishment for the evening, again taking advantage of some heavily discounted late entry tickets.
As the name would suggest, this park is themed entirely to volcanoes, inspired primarily by being situated in France’s volcanic region, which is also where Volvic water comes from. The recent opening of their debut coaster of course put them on our radar for the first time and it was that which we headed to first.
#5 Namazu revolves around a seismological research expedition and is another of Intamin’s quadbike based family launch coasters.
The pre-show is amazing, taking place in this well detailed room.
There’s three possible outcomes for the video footage you get onscreen (always a nice touch for rerideability), each based on a different region of seismic activity (France, Turkey & Japan). They also come with different explanations of what’s going on underneath the surface with these cool holograms.
Oh, but the best part is that the whole room goes dark, sirens go off, the floor shakes and vibrates, part of the roof collapses, all to simulate you being caught up in the earthquake. One of the team members manages to get the emergency power back on and you enter the station.
The ride itself begins with an indoor turn into a cavern, where the same team member greets you on screen. The cavern begins to collapse and pow! drop track.
From there you’re launched out into the turnaround over the plaza, followed by a hill and some twisty moments.
As it winds its way back alongside the queueline you hit the second launch running, propelling you further up the hillside.
This part really focuses on a decent section of fast and sharp transitions before the final brakes, some of which have a surprising whip to them for a family ride.
It’s a much more cohesive experience from start to finish, while also being far better as an actual rollercoaster than the disappointments of Objectif Mars the previous day. Again it’s a little on the short side, particularly for being multi-launch, but what it does do is really very good. The underdog wins and I couldn’t be happier for it.
With that success under our belts it was time to check out what the rest of the park had to offer. With Namazu being the outlying ride, up in the fields and trees, the remainder of the attractions all revolve around a central building hub of multiple floors accessed via lifts or stairs.
We begin with Volcans Sacrés, a trackless dark ride. Sure it’s a little on the educational side, looking at how volcanoes are perceived by different cultures around the world, but it’s really well done.
The car moves you from scene to scene, getting really up close and personal with each setting and story. Extra effects come into play like bursts of heat and animated props which all add a nice touch.
The final room is fantastic, you get to perform a dance of death with this dedicated trackless vehicle, to the tune of some threatening tribal music. I love it when these ride systems get used in innovative and captivating ways (looking at you, Bazyliszek).
On the same floor is Premier Envol, a flying theatre with a twist.
The vehicles are all standup platforms where at best you get a rail to lean on, at worst you’re left to your own sense of balance. They tilt quite a bit as things go along, following various impressive birds as they fly over the volcanic regions of France. A refreshingly different experience and one that’s far less pretentious than certain theatres that I shan’t name.
Dragon Ride 2 is a recently updated and refurbished cinema with simulator seats. It’s now got a little preshow and the story follows a guy who is trying to collect various elemental dragons. S’alright.
The day ended on another big night-time show. It had literally everything they could throw at it, from rising volcanoes to fireworks, from a live guitarist to circus performers, from massive neon dragons to glow in the dark dance troupes. For me it was a bit much, rather hard to follow and went on a little too long, with some really noticeable peaks and troughs in the quality of the spectacle, but it had a good atmosphere throughout.
Overall I was a fan of the park. It had a very relaxed vibe, in a nice settting, with a strong starter pack of rides that can hopefully grow even further over time. That and I’ve always liked volcanoes and stuff.
By sacrificing another, less interesting park (and that’s saying something) we finally had the time to lay this demon to rest. It was only a mere 6 hour detour, but time needed to be killed anyway for the benefit of what was to come later in the day.
After parking in a field we ended up at #1 Tourbillon, the Gosetto spinner first. They’re a rare breed, only 7 in the world and are worryingly similar to those SBF spinners – as if we didn’t have enough of those already. The ride was only notable for being so tame that butterflies would try and land on it, mid cycle.
At the top of the hill was the next chapter in the Soquet saga, #2 Tacot en Folie. Sadly it’s probably the weakest one yet and doesn’t do much of anything at all. A rare lapse in character. ‘I think this one just goes round, bro.’
Feeling a little deflated after all the extra effort we jumped on a small drop/bounce tower to try and justify the journey a little more. It was insane – violent, terrifying ejection at the top of each upwards burst, it knew exactly what it was doing. Apparently it used to have fire effects, would have loved to have seen that.
Right down the bottom of the park is #3 Tornado, a spinning wild mouse. One that I won’t get sick of the sight of because I’m particularly fond of that car design. Can’t go wrong with brightly coloured tornados with faces.
So there we have it, park complete. Now let us never speak of it again.
L’Île aux Géants
Next up was an obscure little setup at the side of a main road, just a few minutes away from Futuroscope, obviously capitalising on some passing trade. Conveniently the adult ticket price is cheaper than the child ticket price, but let’s not let that reflect on the quality of the attractions.
A handy sign is located just past the entrance which shows all the half hour time slots in which each ride operates. The two coasters are located next to each other and run alternately and with 8 minutes to spare between changeover we had timed it just right.
The officially endorsed #4 Avengers Rollercoaster (or is it yet another Grand Huit?) was first, another Zyklon Galaxi, painted in a colour synonymous with the franchise. I believe we got the Spiderman car.
Conveniently there were two plastic chairs parked up directly in front of #5 Brocomela, so in a display of childrens’ coaster confidence, we parked ourselves right on those and waited for it to open. Not sure I’ve ever done two pink coasters back to back before.
Futuroscope
Elated from that success it was time to pop down the road to something a little more significant. I’ve known the name Futuroscope for at least half of my life. It’s one of the most visited places in Europe and I believe it was even a potential school trip destination back in the day but it ain’t no Disney – where are the (closed) rollercoasters?
Of course recently they’ve gone and solved that problem for us fussy people by building one and though I didn’t follow it too closely, it sounded pretty special. Because it was already a well established destination a full day ticket is a little on the pricey side, but if you choose a day with late opening, there are ridiculously cheap options to come in after 5pm, which is what we opted for.
Major faff was happening on the way in, even though more guests seemed to be leaving the park than entering at this point. There was a separate checking area for scanning vaccine codes and providing guests with white wristbands to prove status, but with just one group in front of us it took an extraordinary amount of time to purchase tickets and get in.
But we were in, and headed straight to the back of the park for the new for 2020 coaster. First impressions, the park does fit its own name rather nicely. There’s a lot of weird, I guess futuristic, stuff, around and then little touches like the queue times being stated to the exact minute only add to that.
#6 Objectif Mars was on something like 38, which seemed reasonable, and so the queueline experience began. It looks like it can hold about a million people in the outside cattlepen area of concrete and signs, but we progressed fairly quickly to the indoor section which starts with these posters and holograms. I was getting a bit of a Merlin vibe at this point, not sure if that’s a good thing.
Next are the anti-gravity rooms, trippy.
Followed by a green screen room where you can see yourself standing in a Martian base.
Eventually you climb some stairs past a screen with ‘space flight times’ and come out in the top floor of the station, before heading down and being batched onto the ride. The trains look rather funky with their only-forwards-facing spinning cars, the intention of which is primarily to give everyone the best views of all the show elements of the ride.
It all begins in rather joyous fashion, heading out of the station and twirling, twirling towards freedom. The point of the ride is that you’re testing all the protocols of a flight to Mars as opposed to actually going there, so first up is the environmental stuff. You get a room full of fire. Fire is good. A room full of tesla coils. Sweet.
A surprise fun moment has the track suddenly bank to 45 degrees and the train parks itself with all the cars pointing to the left, riders facing upwards. Some screens simulate a launch sequence, but then the immersion breaks a bit as you trundle outside in to concrete and white walls to stop on an actual launch track.
From here on out it’s largely underwhelming as a rollercoaster, sadly. A mild launch into a hill and 2 corners round the plaza, not much spinning going on. Then comes a second rolling launch that feels largely unjustified given so little has just happened, leading to another hill and 2 corners. All style and no substance.
Lastly it gets good again, entering a shed for the gravity test, which is a powerful drop track moment of which I’m always a fan of. What I’m not so keen on is when rides end on them, it feels like a bit of a come down if there’s nothing left of the experience afterwards, but I guess with a layout that insignificant it was a logical step.
A mixed bag then, I appreciate the flashy innovation side of it, just not the coaster itself.
Construction, get excited.
But this place is mainly about the dark rides, so let’s try some of those. Arthur L’Aventure, a 4D simulator lives just round the corner. Yes, that very same Arthur from Europa Park. Why does he get so many rides out of a film that doesn’t feel at all popular?
Wasn’t a fan of the queue in here, we were at the very front of a pack for the downstairs batching point before getting into a lift. The pack followed in behind us and then of course ended up in front of us in the upstairs queue, resulting in just us missing out on the next 10-15 minute slot, left to stand in a room featuring obnoxious ‘making of’ documentaries about said film. “It rained on set once, hahaha, good times…”
The next waiting area featured an amusing little instructional animation of a large stick man slithering all the way to the end of a long row of cinema seating that kept us entertained for the next 10-15 minutes.
Thankfully the ride itself was totally worth it. An overly violent simulator vehicle with hair ticklers and all sorts that made for a very chaotic and fast paced experience that was unintentionally hilarious. Better than powered coaster Arthur for sure.
Decided to hop on the observation tower before it got dark, so here’s some more striking architecture and an overview of the coaster.
The remaining three attractions of particular interest were all located at the other end of the park and after assessing the queue times we opted for the one with 0 minutes. An encouraging indication of quality?
Well it should have been, because Vienne Dynamique is secretly amazing, was by far the best thing in the park for me, and one of the standout moments of the whole trip. But all of that is very conditional. It is to be enjoyed in complete ignorance, sparingly, in the right frame of mind, with the right company and with a particular sense of humour.
There’s an unremarkable ‘preshow’ in which you all sit in a huge theatre that shows adverts for the park on a screen in the middle of some gushing water, with no context. We were half thinking ‘is this the ride?’ at this point and wondering whether I’d done my research wrong. Doors eventually open to the left of the cinema and everyone files out, while being shouted at to now only fill the front 7 rows for some reason.
Apparently Intamin of all people made these weird two-person simulator seats that feel unnerving to strap yourself into. From what I’ve read I’m expecting some boring film about rivers and to gently list from side to side in a 1990s equivalent of a flying theatre.
The actual film is like no other film you’d ever expect to see at a theme park. Just the fact that it’s live action and not animated was a bit of a shock to the system. Again this is entirely subjective and, like Arthur, was 100% benefiting from being unintentionally hilarious. Side splittingly, can’t breathingly, tears streamingly funny, to me. It was far too much to handle and I can’t really explain it, but I’ll try. I’ll also spoiler it because I think it’s going to go on a while and maybe, just maybe, you’ll need the surprise yourself.
Spoiler
We begin with a French man lying uncomfortably, dead to the world, in the sleeper car of a train. A slow pan and zoom shot, no context. It’s like an independent film from the appropriate decade for the ride system, have they pushed the right button?
He wakes up groggily, stumbles out of bed and then panics, eventually staggering out into the corridor to ask a man what time is it, where are they, what’s the next stop? Etc.
I don’t pick up enough of the French to know what exactly it is that he’s late for but he’s shouting at this man for information, who’s a bit of a caricature himself, standing there in a doorway with a moustache, slowly eating peanuts out of a packet, bemused.
Our hero heads to the end of the carriage and to the train door, not a single movement from our seats yet by the way, and opens it. He sticks his head out, loses balance for a second and it cuts to a low outdoor shot of him flailing as the train hurtles along, wind and trees rushing past. The simulator suddenly kicks in for the briefest of moments, we feel this with him. The comedic timing is unreal. What is this ride?
It cuts back inside, where without warning he pulls the emergency brake for the train and then hurls himself out of the door, tucking and rolling down a grass slope and into some trees.
A slow burn moment, he picks himself up. Is his life ruined? Why so serious? What was he late for? He stumbles around again in the forest, with nothing but the night clothes on his back, screams aloud in rage and anguish and punches a nearby tree in despair.
A pause. The tree begins to magically transform. Eventually a small, old, gnarled tree character is formed, who then instantly looks at the camera and sneezes into it. Water in the face.
Our man stumbles back in shock through the leaves and twigs, falling over backwards in a heap in the process. My sides are starting to hurt.
The tree comes up to him and jabbers on about stuff for a while, with an incredible voice, then presents him with a nasty looking mushroom. The man is given the power to fly and, without hesitation, the ride suddenly turns into a flying theatre, soaring over French towns and landscapes. Again, what is this?
A cut. The tree character is now driving a golf cart and naming random sports with no context. Our man suddenly lands on the roof of the cart, tumbling to the floor. No more powers?
Poof. He’s in a formula 1 car. He screams aloud ‘NOOOOO!’ in terror and realisation, but too late, a scene change and we’re off. A simulated POV lap of a racing circuit, cars careering off around us, he’s doing quite well. He wins the lap! He then heads straight for a wall of tyres with no sign of stopping. Oh no, oh no, how are the seats going to respond to this?
Poof. We’re still in the formula 1 car, but now we’re screaming up cobblestones in old French villages, with everyone having to get out of the way in terror, cars honking, bicycles swerving, this is dangerousss-straight into another wall. I’m so distracted by the story and the visuals at this point that I’ve forgotten what the seats are even doing.
Poof. More villages, more chaos, eventually he finds a way to slow down. We’re parked at an angle on the cobblestones of a narrow street. A man in a stripy jumper who couldn’t look more out of place is rollerskating towards us. He sees us. He tries to react. He very slowly, clumsily, hilariously, comes to a stop and falls over in front of us.
Poof. A town square, we drive up to an old woman on a bench who gives us a telling off. Cut to our man sitting in his racing car in embarrassment. Poof. It’s gone, he’s sitting on the cobblestones. An aerial shot of him getting up and sprinting into the church across the road. Ohhhhhh. He was late for his wedding!
Wedding begins. All is well. Hang on a minute. No. A veil reveal. The bride is the tree. Looks at the camera. Sneezes into it. End.
The greatest ride of a generation, what can I say? It’s that or a complete waste of time depending on what you find funny in life. All I know is I haven’t laughed that hard, for that long, in a very long time.
Well the day could end there, but there’s something about rabbits just opposite. La Machine à Voyager dans le Temps, a dark ride themed to Ubisoft’s Raving Rabbids with an interactive queueline. It has Lost Gravity’s vibrating floor, a trick secret entrance with sound effects. Deformed railings, humourous artwork, the lot. Bit of a pain of a cattlepen though.
Indoors there’s a ton more attention to detail with altered paintings, artifacts, a real universe builder. The rabbids have made a time machine out of a washing machine and we’re going to observe them on their adventure.
The dark ride vehicles are side on benches, intricately decorated so that guests are in fact sitting on toilet seats. They travel sideways to each room in turn, in a giant circle, with each physical set being accompanied by some on screen action. Each scene throughout the ages contains a combination of the seating slowly rising and then suddenly dropping when something happens, or vibrating vigorously, whichever suits.
The humour is a little on the crude side for my tastes, what with these and Minions and all, there’s too much of this characterless hordes of lookalikes causing random childish chaos out there. I’m all about the subtleties of sneezing trees and people falling over, but I have to admit that it’s an impressive and well done attraction.
Last up was the actual flying theatre, L’Extraordinaire Voyage, and it was one hell of an emotional rollercoaster. After not being without its issues, the park was strongly beginning to warm to me again given the quality of certain attractions. The sheltered outdoor queue for this ride had various Jules Verne trinkets and stories scattered about for intrigue.
You then get batched into this gorgeous looking atrium, with all the walls decorated in different styles that represent a wealth of difference Jules Verne novels, along with a flight departure board that lists all the classics we know from well known attractions. So, you know, I actually got rather excited for this one. After the recent Sky Lion revelation that fantasy flying theatres are a cut above the sightseeing ones, here I was thinking that this ride would be the former, flying through all these different worlds, a cut above the rest, as heavily implied by the queueline.
The first preshow begins, with some obnoxious pilot giving us a rundown. “Today we’re going to be doing… around the world in 80 days.” Oh. It’s one of those then. He waffles on for another 10 minutes while I lose complete interest in the setup and we’re batched into another room with screens on the walls. Here we get a visually simulated ‘shuttle journey’ to our actual craft. You know, like one of the many boring/unpleasant parts of being in an airport. Then we’re batched into a corridor for another safety briefing on small screens where I’m losing the will to live. This attraction has lost ALL momentum from that first room, and for what?
We finally board the vehicles, standard fare, seatbelt through the hoop in the middle. A 5 minute ordeal of someone over the PA shouting random letters and numbers in an unthemed cinema room of who hasn’t got their seatbelt on yet, while I’m just in hysterics at this point at how poorly paced this ‘themed experience’ is.
Film begins. Yawn. Film ends. What a waste of potential. Poor Jules Verne.
Luckily there was still time for one more go on Objectif Mars before both ride closures and the start of the second showing of the night time special. The queue had died down quite a bit by this point and we were soon on. While sitting in the train, lap bar down, one of the ride hosts appeared alongside us and made the simple statement ‘that’s not a mask’ to my face, with no further instruction. Well this is awkward, here I am, strapped in, what would you like me to do about it? Nothing. Dispatch. Looks like I’ll be wearing blues for the rest of France then. Again I’m not at all bothered by the concept, just that it occurs at 10pm one night, in a park where you’ve gone through so many other checkpoints to be where you are now i.e. the one at the main entrance when you’re having your vaccination status approved and displayed. Surely that would be the point at which a member of staff could politely ask ‘have you got X type of mask instead of Y type of mask with you, for your visit today?’, rather than randomly being accosted by a singular ride host halfway through your umpteenth attraction who, on looks alone, seems to think your piece of material is less effective than another piece of material, regardless of how well it’s being worn, particularly when half the other guests (in the same train) don’t even have them over their noses.
Anyway, I’m letting all that nonsense interrupt a good trip report, just like it interrupts a good day out. It was the same ride, just dark outside. S’alright.
Having spent the entirety of the visit either queuing for, or being on rides, we had missed the opportunity to grab some food on park. Now having half an hour to spare until the night time show started, sadly most of the options had been closed and depleted, so we ended up with the staple cheese and ham baguette and opted to stand at the barriers just above the stadium seating area for the show, rather than joining the masses.
I liked it. I didn’t understand it, but I liked it. There’s an actor with some sciencey DJ set who gets sucked into a portal to meet a wizard and a big evil furry creature. Their disputes are settled through the medium of song (the bad guy gets a rather epic rap track) and are displayed through fountains, water projections, fire and fireworks. All that jazz.
I don’t know what to think of Futuroscope. It wasn’t at all what I expected in both good and bad ways. There’s a fair amount of quality in there, but the ‘better’ attractions are probably the worse ones and vice versa. It definitely feels like a place you need to experience in good company and spirits (well, moreso than just any old theme park). I get the sense that a solo visit would have been a complete drag. A drag just like this report, which has gone on far too long now.
Next morning we ignored the dreaded words ‘Ange Michel’ that were still ringing in the back of our minds and ploughed on to the very north-western tip of France, to the home of the most significant ride of the trip so far (not difficult). Day 3 – La Récré des 3 Curés
Dubbed more affectionately by ourselves as ‘Reccy 3’, this was the second park in a row to feature a tunnel under a road to reach the entrance, though far less massive this time. With tickets purchased and gates unlocked it was straight to the back of the park for some Gerstlauer goodness.
Here it is, #1 Vertika. The Eurofighter you probably forgot existed, I know I had. Looks rather fetching.
Only about 10 people had made it to the entrance of the ride as they sent some test cars and opened it up, so the one train operation was more than adequate for us to grab multiple walk-on laps in succession.
It’s a decent ride, very nice to see a new layout for this model, though I can’t help but wonder why they don’t just come with lap bars by default these days, with multiple options available.
There’s a suspenseful little slow down at the crest of the lift which felt a little different. The loop is unusually wide? By that I mean a larger than average horizontal gap between entrance and exit.
A couple of alright airtime moments in the top of the twisty and in the banked speed hill thing up into the non-inversion, which hurls you back down into the final corkscrew, threading the loop rather nicely. It’s not an unpleasant corkscrew either, Eurofighters are nailing those inversions nicely at long last.
Solid stuff, short but sweet. Probably wouldn’t go out of the way for it other than for completeness though.
The only other ride on the agenda for this park was the first of the #2 Grand Huits, sharing a name with that fateful Jardin ticket. Yet another unpainted Soquet with some stuff going on, largely corners and changes in elevation, it was fairly groundbreaking and the train design was a nice touch.
Ange Michel. Would it happen? We swiftly left the park at this point, struggling somewhat to leave through a ton of guests now packed wall to wall in the entrance tunnel, still queuing to get into the park. Timed that right then.
A man had to move a cone for us to exit the car park, perhaps rather unusually, at no more than one hour through the operating day and then a couple more later we had reached park number two.
Kingoland
Though good progress had been made, it all came to a grinding halt here.
The first queue we entered was for the elaborately rethemed Zyklon Galaxi, #3 Apollo Steamrocket. Steampunk really is all the rage these days, though it’s unusual to see it on a ride of this calibre.
It appeared to be working in terms of popularity, attracting a 30 minute wait from guests who mostly seemed to be loving it. I zone these things out so hard that they just become an extension of whatever conversation is going on and it was at this point we decided the day would be ‘make or break’ at the dark ride.
Next up was #4 Speed Chenille, a vicious looking kids coaster with a comically huge bug face. It used to live at Jardin with an apple, but no speed.
Though not quite what I’d hoped for, it certainly had some go to it and the crazy looking airtime hill was sufficiently disproportionate to the layout.
Turns out it was ‘break’ at the dark ride. Though not a large queue by any means, time was ebbing away and the situation was starting to look exactly the same as the previous day. We could make it to the next park, but they’d probably close in our face.
This was a fairly standard wild west themed shooting dark ride, the type that sets off small effects as you travel around, rather than being a points scorer.
The last coaster was another stock model Pinfari that used to live at the Gullivers park we were just recently let into. It looks surprisingly good as #5 Gold Rush, again they’ve put a fair amount of effort into glamming it up. It was also weirdly smooth and totally not what I expected. I’m calling witchcraft.
Park complete it was time to assess the options. Ange Michel was gone, again. Some wacky worm looked like too much effort as we still had a long, long way to go. A funfair had appeared on route that was slightly less detour and meant to be a +2 instead of a +1. Let’s give it a go.
Oh, this was the journey with the McDonalds that had a convoluted outdoor entrance barrier, staff that were smoking in our faces while they scanned our vaccine codes and that then wouldn’t let me in with what had so far served me adequately as a face covering (read – a snoody thing that may or may not be imbued with anti-virus magic). They wanted something better (read – 2p’s worth of blue and elastic from China, off Amazon) that I also had with me.
Just something to be wary of for now, it turns out a fair few Europeans across various countries seem to have a bit of a thing about this at the moment and are spoiling for an argument, whether looking like a bandit instead of a surgeon makes you a ‘covid ain’t real’ conspiracist, or everyone’s now a medical professional. To be clear on my stance, I’m not a medical professional and am happy to wear absolutely anything from scuba mask to space suit so long as it lets me get on with daily life, the problems only arose through inconsistent instruction and/or the attitude with which it can sometimes be delivered.
At the fair, nope, though they claimed ‘some rides were open’ from 5pm, it was a ghost town, in a poor location, next to a dodgy supermarket/construction site.
There was one more brief sightseeing stop on route. Bastille Day, 2018, again. A hotel with no air-con in 35°C. One of our staple activities on short trips to France was established, namely watching a TV show called Fort Boyard. If you’re familiar with the Crystal Maze then it’s that, French, with celebrities, for charity, on a fort out in the sea, with 1000x more risk of death and endless comedy.
Anyway, here it is, the fort itself, just about. Seeing it in person was a pretty cool moment.
Luna Park Palmyre
Never mind that other funfair. This was a funfair. And also our first taster of what would become a bit of a staple over or the next week – French semi-permanent parks that don’t start until 8pm and stay open until 2am. They’re also rather deceivingly reported on RCDB due to the travelling nature of half the lineup, so make sure to check another source like Coaster Count if you ever plan on visiting one of these, you may be surprised by what turns up.
#6 Jet Star was imposing over us at the entrance, so the adventure began on that. The signature single file seating and forceful layout full of crazy compact turns didn’t disappoint. Smooth, powerful, exposed, Schwarzkopf doing what he did best.
Beyond the permanent resident, they also had #7 Le Dragon. Doesn’t need much description past ‘more than a Wacky Worm.’
And a spinning #8 Wild Mouse. Prepare to get sick of the sight of them.
Maybe Michael Jackson designed Thriller instead of Space Mountain. In any case this was my first and last time paying for crappy ghost trains on this trip. I was thinking about putting myself through every single one for the sake of research (or, a dangerous thought, maybe even competitively counting them one day) but there’s just nothing to say about these. They’re an event, not an experience. Loud noises and cheap decoration, not my kind of thing.
This massive drop tower caught our eye somehow. Mega King tower looked rather good offride, reminiscent of the old Power Tower that used to frequent Hyde Park Winter Wonderland before they swapped it for an inferior model.
While queuing we watched a hilarious looking offroad jeep ride that was launching people off of dirt hills, not something you expect to see at your average fair.
Huge, good views, an extended double cycle and a kick ass drop. It delivered on all counts, but it was worrying how easily we got distracted by something like this. No time for distractions later down the line.
Finally, again for the benefit of DRDB research, we jumped on the log flume Le Splash, which was described as having a dark ride section.
Not really, though it was a fun water ride with some extremely intense water braking on the drops, the second one putting me in an entirely standup position for a moment at the bottom, the ‘indoor section’ didn’t meet the criteria at all and I’ve since had it removed, so that’s a positive outcome.
With that, the day was complete, other than a late night drive to the next hotel, where more plans would have to be drawn up for a certain forgotten park.
The second day was in theory going to be fairly chill, a calm before the storm of many, many late night ride establishments. As we started to head anti-clockwise around the country, the first park of the day was a humble affair by the name of Day 2 – Papéa Parc
The names will definitely start to blur by the time we’re done, but the individual characters are at least holding for now. This place is home to
A poor #1 Chenille with a missing antenna.
A nice looking Tivoli Large, imaginitively named #2 Roller Coaster. Take care not to skim your hand in the stones as though it was the water at Tripsdrill.
Time to kill means time for small ferris wheels, made by Technical Park, of ‘Italian dinosaur log flume that may or may not be a coaster’ fame.
And cute little boat rides with Irish ride ops that play royalty free panpiped Lion King music.
Before the main event, more Soquet goodness in the form of #3 Train de la Mine.
This one had a bit of a stewing queue, but it was eventually worth it for some of that strong terrain game and unpainted finish.
Being the literal definition of ‘some creds’, I don’t have a huge amount to say about Papéa so I’ll ramble a little instead. It was an overall pleasant park and put another +3 under the belt. It’s located near the Le Mans race circuit and the Goodyear blimp likes to hover ominously around the sky. As we left, some sort of anniversary celebration was going on in the form of a middle aged man calmly DJing from a laptop to an audience of none, while what looked like his parents were sitting just to the side, texting and making orange squash. Next?
Festyland
Another very pleasant park. Seems I don’t have an actual entrance shot of the place, instead just this humongous tunnel which you get to pass through from the car park.
With back to back Soquets, #4 Drakkar had me worried that it was some sort of clone as the ending sequence near the station looked very similar to the previous one. Fortunately the rest of the layout was rather different and contained some decent landscaping of its own. I like to imagine the manufacturer used to just turn up on site with some steel and wing it on the day.
The real star of the show is #5 1066 though. I simply loved this thing. It’s a little more significant than most other Soquets and rides with a real vigour.
The face of the bull on the front says it all (I’m not even sure how he’s related to the battle of Hastings), as it just plunges down this big hillside and gets surprisingly intense in places. For one of these at least.
Time to kill means time for flat rides, in this case, Eretic, or ‘better Cyclonator’.
And time for water rides with a ridiculously violent trough spin on them. Seriously, watch out for the Kaskade.
Wait. Wait. Wait. This all feels too easy to me. Something isn’t sitting right. A look of concern had crossed my face as we left this ride and a sudden, horrific thought occurred to me – we’ve forgotten a park. I’ve become overly complacent with knowing the itineraries off the top of my head these days (with how much fruitless trip planning I’ve done this year, it’s no surprise) and had somehow subconsciously fooled myself into thinking this was an easy two park day. In actuality it was meant to be a go-hard three park day. What an amateur.
After racing back to the car and punching some numbers into Google, it simply wasn’t to be. Ange Michel, a name we would come to curse regularly throughout the coming weeks, would just have to wait for another day.
Clécy Gliss
There was however now time for a bonus round instead. On a hillside down the road was our first of these weird contraptions.
A single rail Alpine coaster, #6 Clécy Gliss. These are manufactured by Wiegand’s Austrian rival Brandauer, who actually started the ‘mountain coaster’ game one year earlier, back in 1996, and have since been acquired by Sunkid, of ‘Butterflies and random new trains on dodgy coasters’ fame.
Single rail = terrifying. I’ve had my moments over the last few years of fearing various alpine coasters. Though you’re sufficiently upstopped on rails while riding of course, there can be something unnerving about the way the structures just sit on what appear to be loose rocks, I’ve still never been 100% convinced you can just no-brake every installation that ever existed and the relatively exposed feeling of sitting on a tea tray doesn’t often help matters either.
These things feel even more exposed and slightly more ghetto, which is an interesting combination. They also appear to have the ability to perform much steeper drops, an experience all in itself. A solid last minute find at the very least and a warm up, perhaps, of what’s to come.
It’s been far too long. This time last year I was bemoaning those first world problems that 2020 brought to the realm of theme park trips, telling some lowly tales about dusting off minor European coasters (oh, and Zadra), while silently hoping that 2021 would be the one to turn it around.
It didn’t.
The same trip plans I back then had were cancelled again not once, not twice, but three times over. Turns out it’s actually harder to go anywhere this year than it was last. There’s now a lot more hoop jumping, many more unfathomable rules and plenty of persistent website checking to be done. But where there’s a will there’s a way and Eurodemption 2 – The Revenge was born. Bigger, badder and more burdensome than ever.
The primary chunk of the trip revolved around France this year, which was a nail biter in itself as they had barely made it off of the UKs ‘amber plus’ list in time. Two weeks had been pencilled for what was basically a loop of the country, along with some cheeky bonuses to finish. As more borders sprang into life the itinerary grew even more adventurous and sporadic, and it’s fair to say that the trip wasn’t without issues. But that’s the fun part.
Day 1 – Parc du Bocasse
Bastille Day, 2018. The tour de France was in town and the Gendarmerie were breathalysing us in a layby at 2 in the afternoon. Freedom was in the air. Those were the days. We had visited Bocasse before for a quick +3 and a surprise Soquet log flume with elevator lift, while somehow skipping a dark ride that may or may not have existed at the time (it did). The park have been keeping themselves very busy since then, adding another 2 coasters and completely changing the face of another and so they seemed like the perfect starting point for a post channel tunnel journey.
I’m already feeling too wordy, but what are these reports for if not to be educational? If you want to do anything in France right now (from England at least) you’ll want to get yourself two vaccines, an NHS Covid Pass QR code and a healthy supply of ‘medical masks’. Oh, how we’re going to have fun with that term. All (legit) parks like to scan this code on entry and you may even find yourself needing all of these things to even get into a McDonalds, while they smoke in your face.
With the revelation that French phone apps recognise said code and the system actually works, it was straight to the newest and most major coaster. #1 Orochi is the 600th Orkanen to have been built since 2013 and though it’s a really good layout and experience for what it is, with all the forces in the right places, they’re definitely starting to wear me down, as all clones do.
It is particularly nicely presented, that pale green is rather striking in a way that makes me wonder how we’re still discovering new colours for coasters in this day and age and the big snappy dinosaur is a nice touch on-ride, though hard to capture in any great detail from afar.
They’re not quite done with the finishing touches, some of the queueline is yet to be built and there’s a pond on the way, but I’d say they’ve done well with this one. It just doesn’t seem that popular yet with a bit of an awkward dead end location on park. Like the Swarm.
I was playing around with this superwide lens on a different phone for the other new-to-me coaster in the park before deciding I don’t like it that much. This Prestion & Barbieri classic, #2 Pirate’s Coaster was struggling to park itself on multiple occasions, resulting in far more laps than strictly necessary for the checklist.
Ah yes, there it is. I can forgive myself for missing out on Apiland before because it looks like the building for a children’s play area and not a major attraction. The dark ride is actually surprisingly elaborate and themed to bees, bees existing happily in many different environments. It has a catchy onboard tune and meets just about every requirement to be a quirky and fun indoor attraction. Don’t miss it.
There was still time for a token lap on the park’s previous star rollercoaster, now Fort D’Odin. The before and after shot shows how much effort they’ve put into this thing and it was surely worth it. I’d forgotten how secretly good a lot of these medium Soquet coasters are. They’re like the Japanese jet coasters of Europe, an unpredictable frolic through weird and wonderful forces that you just don’t get from your stock models.
Other highlights from this ride include overhearing a man awkwardly describe to his children how this park was a warm up to Disneyland and that they should be looking forward to ‘that Space coaster designed by Michael Jackson.’
Poor Jules Verne. And that’s not the only time I’ll be saying that on this trip.
Jardin d’Acclimatation
I always get the name wrong for this park and have been meaning to visit for at least 7 years now, never quite getting round to it for various reasons ranging from laziness to lack of effort. The drive into Paris was surprisingly pleasant, with no accidental trips round the Arc de Triomphe and though my planned car park didn’t appear to exist there was plentiful metered parking on the road that runs along the top of the ‘garden’. Parking with flawed increments of money at least. It suddenly gets very expensive if you choose over 4 hours, but there’s no indication of a no returns rule. We paid for what we thought should be enough (see if you can guess where this is going) and headed in, QR codes at the ready.
The epic sounding ‘grand huit’ was our ticket of choice for the visit, which grants entry and huit (8) attraction tickets. It’s also the name of multiple coasters elsewhere on this adventure, stay tuned for that excitement.
Hadn’t really thought about it, but the place felt rather busy. The queue for the main draw, #3 Speed Rockets, was spilling just outside of the entrance but in reality it just can’t hold that many people and the operations are pleasantly swift. We were on in under 20 minutes.
I’m so glad these Gerstlauer Bobsleds are becoming so diversified over time because they can be cracking little rides. There’s tons of character in this one, from the multiple lift hills, weird double down drop, whippy overbanks and solid pops of unusual air. I really liked it and quickly thought to myself it could be the best one yet.
After the pleasant reminder of Soquet earlier, #4 Machine à Vapeurkilled, in the best way. A janky powered coaster with speed in all the wrong places is punctuated by a ridiculously violent plummet into, and subsequent ejection from, a small concrete tunnel that marks the final stretch of each circuit. There’s only one setting to the lap bars on these things and the result is absolute carnage.
The Kinetorium had recently come onto my radar after learning that not all 100 of the Alterface interactive theatres in the world have to be Desperados 4D, ones like these have pre-shows, custom theming, the works. (More here if you’re interested in that stuff). ‘Plants grow big and evil, by mistake, and you have to shoot them with chemicals’ is the general gist of the experience, which combines the fun of both a communal competitive atmosphere with everyone else in the room and a surprisingly energetic ride-on seat that makes it a right romp.
Trouble was afoot. The rare baby Reverchon spinner wasn’t open for business and I really wasn’t planning on being spited this early. There were however signs of life, even though it was getting pretty late in the operating hours. Someone was in the control box and at one point a test car was sent.
There are gardens here too, as the name would suggest. The Korean garden had me reminiscing about better times again, but never mind that, let’s focus on the highlights of the here and now.
Further down the path, the final coaster of the park was also ‘temporarily closed’ and undergoing some test laps, with a significant queue forming outside. It was clear that any hope of success was not going to be immediate and that our parking was going to run out in due course, so while they warmed the various seats for us it was time to quickly pop out and rectify that particular situation.
Upon leaving the park at the far exit we asked the nearest member of staff about the re-entry policy, something which you’re not technically allowed to do for whatever reason (money). As it was a literal 2 minute ‘pop out to the car’, she kindly stated that of course she’d let us back in, so long as we were quick. While passing several other admissions staff on the way out I remarked about how nice that gesture was and jokingly hoped aloud that she wouldn’t suddenly change shifts or go home on us.
2 minutes later, she was gone. The four other staff members that had also been there at the time were suddenly acting like they had never seen us before in their lives. Our admission tickets with half their active ride tokens still available on them were suddenly a source of great suspicion and after a failed attempt to reason with what had literally just happened, we were forced to buy another set of admission only tickets while one of the staff was adamantly warning the sales office not to ‘let us get away with anything else’, like we were out to commit some heinous crime.
With that unpleasantness out of the way, it was time for more Soquet goodness in the form of #5 Dragon Chinois, with it’s pleasant landscaping and overdose of lift hills for such a small layout.
The mini spinning mouse, #6 Souris Mécaniques, had come back to life by now and felt weird with all the proportions being off from what I’m normally used to with these things. The ride had a bit of a slow start to proceedings but managed to get sufficiently violent by the end. Always nice to try new models.
Believing the day was done, it was out of Paris and off to the first hotel for the night. Hang on a minute, is that a cred at the side of the road? Braaaaaake!
Yes it is. By complete chance, we had stumbled across this temporary setup about halfway on route. Never mind that it’s for enfants. Le Festival Des Enfants
The cred in question was this piece of magnificence, #7 Le petit train de la mine. Fully prepared to not even find it on the sacred coaster count database, detailed pictures and notes were being taken before, surprise, it already exists, under one of the seven possible combinations of words printed on and around the ride. As an added bonus it had only been previously documented in photo form, closed in a field and there were no registered riders. I’ll take those 10 rare points now, thanks.
You know it’s not a good sign when riding rollercoasters causes you grievous injury on the first day of a long trip. The seatbelt mounts happened to be sharp, protruding and located at shoulder blade height in the centre of each car. On the fastest corner of the first lap I let out an involuntary scream as the laterals of the ride tried to cut me open. The operator looked concerned, but he had bigger things to worry about as one of the lap bars further up the train wasn’t down properly, prompting a quick on the fly fix as it came through the station for the second lap. After endless laps of fear and defensive riding, I discovered later that the ride had indeed drawn blood and given me the ugliest graze imaginable. It’s far from the first time I’ve suffered for my art and I’m sure it won’t be the last.
There wasn’t much of a plan for the main park as we headed in. Still hadn’t quite managed to avoid the full spite of the fateful school visit years ago as Space Mountain was known to be undergoing a bit of an overhaul during the visit, but there were plenty of other exciting things on offer.
The ‘educational’ reason for that school trip was so that we could learn about marketing and product design for theme parks (pretty cool, looking back on it now). Literally everyone else was boring and did Space Mountain with generic space stuff (and no research into the Jules Verne styling) but on park I was much more taken with the aesthetic of Big Thunder and became it’s sole advocate in class.
Big Thunder Mountain
That looks like a ride I can get behind advertising. It still managed to spend most of this visit broken for extended periods of time, so each ride we managed to get felt a little extra special. There’s something rather endearing around breakdowns that attract a crowd of dedicated followers who will camp outside the entrance and wait to be the first back on it and this was a common sight here, with us included of course.
It’s fully justified too, as I cannot fault this attraction. The theming, attention to detail and overall interaction with riders is world class. On top of that, it feels like it goes on forever, with 3 separate lift hills (all painfully loud) and the ride just keeps on giving.
The isolation of the main layout with the surrounding water makes it extra special, with a cool and breezy underwater tunnel trip out of the station at the start. Of course to get back at the end, the train has to navigate another tunnel and this section is the standout part of the ride, gaining speed relentlessly and feeling more and more out of control as it plunges deeper into the dark.
The nearby Phantom Manor is another stunning looking attraction. I particularly like the gardens out towards the side of the building – they’re a dead end and for that reason absolutely no one goes there. It’s a lovely quiet spot to appreciate the surroundings and attention to detail that almost nobody else will see. All the while, the house looms ominously, with spooky shadows catching your eye in the windows. Spine tingling stuff.
The preshow room, story and effects maintain that fear factor before riders board the classic omnimover transit system. A cracking soundtrack and several clever magic tricks throughout help to elevate it well beyond your average dark ride.
Indiana Jones et le Temple du Péril
With my reluctance to ride Rock’n’Rollercoaster back in the day, this one also greatly scared the younger me, imagining it to be some immensely sophisticated ride (I believe it was operating backwards at that time) with it’s terrifying inversions.
Now I know that it’s an Intamin-built Pinfari looper layout all that mystique has faded to nothing and it’s almost annoying to me that it exists in a Disney park at all. I say almost because the theming is still amazing, but the rollercoaster itself? A poor excuse for an attraction.
The other dark ride I had had my eye on forever was Pirates of the Caribbean. The one that was so compelling it inspired a film franchise, rather than the other way around. It didn’t disappoint, with the smooth but breathtaking drop into the darkness kicking off a lengthy and stunning experience of sights, sounds and smells.
In our lack of things to do as well as not knowing what to do, we discovered that we had missed so much the first time around. There’s a massive animatronic dragon under the castle which would have been a great spot to while away a few of the more tedious hours as youngsters.
It’s notorious for being annoying but I actually like ‘its a small world’. It’s a good little sit down.
Casey Jr., Le Petit Train du Cirque
As is the confusingly clever powered coaster. Didn’t know Vekoma made them and didn’t know you could operate more than one train on them simultaneously, assuming the powered rail system was like scalextric track, so I spent most of the time marvelling at those revelations.
Oh, the hours we had spent on this ride. Aside from Phantom Manor, all I had ever done before was Buzz LightyearLaser Blast, though never actually seeming to get any better at the shooting. The main journey to improvement was in waiting for it to pause operation (usually for disabled access or guests causing chaos in the station) in the final boss room to rack up as many points as possible.
As a massive Star Wars fan I was surprised at how underwhelming an attraction Star Tours managed to be. It doesn’t seem to capture any of the magic of the franchise and ends up as a rather unremarkable and outdated simulator ride. I’m struggling to pinpoint why, but I believe my issue lies in the way the storyline pivots around forcing us, the guests, into being part of a more mundane portion of the universe (a tour bus in space), rather than giving us the opportunity to observe something more thrilling or emotionally stirring as a spectator.
There’s a large number of other dark rides in the Fantasyland area of the park, all the Peter Pans, Snow Whites and Cinderellas that are the staple of Disney castle parks. I don’t have much interesting to add about these, just that they benefit the already large stack of compelling attractions and all range from good to great.
As time ran on we found ourselves settling down for the night time show in front of the castle. It was a wonderfully relaxed atmosphere, everyone spread out and chilling on the ground from here and as far back as the entrance in the warm summer evening.
It was an exciting build to a spectacular pay off. The show blends together a projected storyline, the music of the films, fireworks, pyros and everything else into a wonderfully emotional culmination of the days experiences. A masterclass of park entertainment and one of the main reasons Disney parks are so special.
Overall we had a fantastic few days here and I look forward to returning for Space Mountain V3 and whatever else they conjure up in the meantime.
As well as being somewhere we really wanted to get a proper taste of, this was a trip of vengeance. Embarassingly I had been before, back in my school days and had sat out on the only rollercoaster open at the time through fear. Most of the rest of the resort was closed for several days due to poor weather and planning (well it was January) and even the ‘educational’ portions of the school trip had to be called off so it was an utter shambles all round. I didn’t like the evening meals, we stayed in the cheapest of the hotels, the coach journey went on for at least 12 hours in either direction and I’m struggling to remember anything positive about the entire thing.
So let’s do it properly this time.
To fix the coach issue, we flew into Paris and took a shuttle bus from there. Other than Charles de Gaulle airport, which even for a novice was a grim place to be, this was a massive improvement. It was an entertaining bus journey if only for the characters we had around us. Many strange families from weird and wonderful background were obviously extremely excited to find themselves on their way to the park and were displaying this by punching the seats in front of them, making complicated hand signals and exclaiming DISNEYLAND at every opportunity.
To fix the hotel issue, we had a package deal at the New York hotel, with a whole 2 extra stars to it’s name. Not sure where those extra stars went because this wasn’t much better. There were bare live electrical wires protuding from the light fixtures, I managed to break both the hairdryer and the TV (a relic from the 90s) and it generally had a very run down feel about the place.
To fix the weather, it was June. This worked too well and it was too hot – mid 30°Cs and exhausting over the long days.
In we go then.
Walt Disney Studios Park
As this is a two gate resort, having the park hopper tickets is a nice touch, being free to wander between the two at a leisurely pace with no restrictions. The studios is the smaller of the two parks, but it had already expanded quite significantly since the previous visit.
Crush’s Coaster
We had been given the advice that due to capacity reasons, this got the largest queues in the studios so headed straight towards it in the morning. Experiences with Dragon’s Fury back home had led me to believe that Maurer Spinning coasters had a lot of potential and I was excited to see what Disney had done with it. Though the theming, particularly in the station, enhanced the ride greatly, it was noticeably lacking in the thrill department.
Rock’n’Rollercoaster
Time to throw old fears aside and tackle this one head on. I had come a long way in 8 years and had absolutely no apprehensions about a few poxy loops in the dark. The greater apprehension was produced by having to keep a bag about your person while in the train, sat in the floor of the vehicle and wrapped around a leg. The on board speakers for the ride were crackling and stuttering as it launched into the first inversion. All I remember from this point onwards was ‘there goes the bag’ and spending the remainder of the layout hoping it was alright. It’s not a very good attraction these days.
This is though. Tower of Terror is a remarkable experience from start to finish. It kicks off with the atmosphere in the themed indoor lobby and the creepy acting skills of the staff that guide you around. The preshow room that sets the scene in Twilight Zone fashion is hugely entertaining and the area beyond that houses the elevators is breathtaking to behold. Every time we came to the batch point for these, the same comedy occurred in which the member of staff would ask for a specific number of guests, the group at the front of the queue would say they were a completely different number of guests and then be waved through regardless. “I’m looking for a 2.” “We’re a 6.” “Come on through!” Genius.
The most important part is the ride of course and it’s simply magnificent. With nothing but a simple seatbelt holding you in, bags loose again on the floor, the sheer exhilaration of the elevator movement as it launches from top to bottom and everywhere in between is completely addictive. The lurch in the drops was often strong enough to bring the unguarded bags up to eye level, so you can imagine the kind of impact that has on the riders.
The studio tram tour was one of the few things I had actually done before. It’s a classic attraction, travelling around movie sets and culminating in a scene of impressive special effects.
RC Racer
One of my earliest encounters with the deep philosophical question – is this a cred? It’s powered at the bottom of the dip during each passing of the station, but beyond a certain point at each tail of the U it begins to coast under it’s own momentum. I’ve managed to stretch to a yes, but it’s not very good.
I was much more interested to try the trackless dark ride based on one of my favourite animated films, Ratatouille, but sadly I was a little underwhelmed by this attraction. The movement of the vehicles was clever and refreshing, but it relied quite heavily on screens for the action sequences and things just didn’t seem to flow very well. I didn’t really feel like part of it and because the storyline is already nicely concluded at this point, the new narrative seemed to lack any of the emotion of the movie (or sense) and I didn’t fall for it.
To fix the food issue outside the park, we had lunch at the Earl of Sandwich and it was amazing. After 355 years he really has perfected the art of making them. Our half board meal tickets ended up taking us to Annette’s diner for our evening eats and this was just pathetic in comparison. I don’t think I’ve ever been more insulted in a restaurant than the moment the ‘main course’ Caeser salad was placed in front of me.
The conclusion was that there is still a very limited selection of attractions in the studios and Tower of Terror was the clear standount – a reason to visit all on its own and the only real reason to stick around for a while. I hope that they manage to integrate even more rides into this area in future to balance it better against the main park, which is where we shall head for the next part.
This was the trip that started mine and Heartline’s tradition of taking the tunnel to Europe every summer. It’s an amazing feeling to get out to Europe without all the faff that flying presents, not to mention it’s great fun to fly down the European motorways in your own car.
Day 1
An extremely early start sent us flying towards the tunnel at half 4 in the morning and thanks to being the only car on the road we were on the train in no time.
We were slightly worried that the process was going to be complicated but it’s actually really easy and once you’ve done it a couple of times it’s second nature.
Parc Saint Paul
After almost removing the exhaust on my 4 month old car by means of the car park being made of boulders, we walked round to the entrance of Parc Saint Paul.
It was right now that I fell in love with this insanely wacky park, the first reason being the security guards are 7 and a half foot tall local celebrities and the second is just how perfectly ghetto the place looks.
Wild Train – My first ever PAX coaster and it was beautiful. From how ghetto and garish it looks to how insanely messed up it rides, it’s a work of art. Crazy unpredictable airtime, violent laterals and transitions that shouldn’t exist, Wild Train has it all!
Formule 1 – My second ever PAX coaster and it was also beautiful. Take all the positives of Wild Train, then add a serious risk of the whole thing collapsing, oh and real tigers pacing in cages by the brake run and you have Formule 1. Parc Saint Paul is one of a kind.
Yeah the park has other much less exciting coasters I could mention but I’d only be wasting your time, you’ll just have to return to the park in my 2018 report where they added the amazing Wood Express.
Incase you couldn’t tell I really like Parc Saint Paul, 2 really unique messed up coasters and a charming ghetto atmosphere combine to give the park so much character that just hearing the name makes me smile.
We grabbed some frites and then launched back onto the road to Parc Asterix.
Parc Asterix
I’d heard alot of stories both good and bad about this famous French park, so I wasn’t sure how to feel going in, so let’s find out.
We purchased the one go on everything fast track in advance with our tickets and this paid off because the park was quite busy.
Vol D’Icare – Rare Zierer Hornet model, it was fine.
Tonnerre de Zeus – Zeus was such a disappointment… I was expecting this massive CCI woodie to be really good and sadly it wasn’t. Almost no air time, almost no forces, almost all corners. Now using the Megafobia logic we may have just caught Zeus on a really bad day and it has the ability to be amazing sometimes but as I can only judge what I was subjected to, for now it’s a let down.
Goudurix – I’d read online that this Vekoma monster was one of the roughest coasters in World, it wasn’t, but it also wasn’t very good.
Pegase Express – The park’s brand new Gertslauer family coaster is just so much fun, the World needs more of these things.
OzIris – This was at the time of riding my first ever majorly disappointing B&M and it’s even more a shame when it’s an Invert which are one of the most consistant models out there for quality.
OzIris is almost forceless, rides badly and the layout doesn’t flow well, me and Heartline both sat in silence on the brake run, neither of us wanting to admit we’d just ridden a weak B&M Invert.
Trace Du Hourra – Possibly the worst Mack Bobsled coaster?
Menhir Express – The park’s log flume was really good and we needed it because today was very hot.
Le Defi De Cesar – Madhouse attraction that was really well done.
While the line up of the park was certainly well below what I was expecting it to be, the park itself is very well themed in places and I’m sure if it wasn’t so hot and busy it would be a nice place to explore. Operations were very good and the staff all seemed to be trying their best to reduce queue times. The pizza restaurant we visited was really nice and alot cheaper than we were expecting.
I think I can understand the appeal of the park to some people but I’m going to have to wait for a major new coaster before thinking of returning to the park.
That evening we positively flew to the hotel because we had to get there before night fall because I couldn’t work out how to fit the light reflectors to my car.
Thanks for reading, click here for day 2, Bellewaerde and Plopsa De Panne.
There’s a few parks in Europe we always considered going to for what seemed like forever. Parc Astérix is actually pretty close to home, if your home happens to be in the south of England so it seemed silly to have been to all these far flung places without trying a couple more ‘local’ parks with supposedly very decent lineups.
And with this thought, the summer channel tunnel tradition was born. Had enough of that flying faff.
Day 1 – Parc Saint Paul
This little gem of a park was on the way down to the main event. Thanks to the Sat Nav, we ended up unnecessarily in the overflow car par. A few other cars had done the same and were beginning to figure things out, but we’d made our bed and sucked up the longer walk. The quirkiness of this place begins at the gate, where the 8ft tall security guards are checking guests bags. That night I was haunted by dreams of being too tall for creds.
Started off with #1 Pomme, one for Merlin – world’s first Wacky Worm with fog machine. Spectacular theming on this ride, wish a few other parks would put a little effort into disguising their inferior hardware like this. Plohn.
Are Pax rides consistently crazy? Yes they are.
#2 Wild Train
Being a shared lap bar on Wild Train, I made the statement “I’ve got some clearance here” as we crested the lift in the back seat. Some entertainingly substantial ejection followed moments later. They underestimate themselves by having seatbelts in the back row but not the front. It’s an equally wild ride at both ends and a lot of fun, perfectly blurring the line between poorly built and deservedly intense.
Got a +1 on a spinning wild mouse, #3 Une Souris Verte.
I couldnt quite work out what I was looking at from the car park in terms of the track for the other Pax in the park. The only thing I knew going into this ride was that it had crashed in the past.
#4 Formule 1
Impatiently pacing tigers in a small cage next to the ride seemed quite fitting for the daredevil attitude of this hardware. It was a unique experience, but being a bit like a wild mouse in pacing, perhaps not as good as their other one in the park.
Got a +1 on #5 Mini Mouse Cartoon (not Tuff Tuff To-get) while discussing the many ways in which swinging from a pole on a piece of playground equipment, breaking a leg and being carried off is not a cred, though some consider it to be. (Yes, we saw that happen).
I assume Vekoma were trying to counteract the Paxness of this park when they did the design for #6 Aérotrain. Their junior coasters are far from the best of rides anyway, but something was seriously off with the uneventful layout of this one.
Loved this park, sits well inside the realms of friendly, quirky, interesting and not at all busy so you can really get the most out of half a day there.
Parc Astérix
In a change to the original billing, we decided to utilise both some extra long opening hours and their one-shot fastrack system to make sure this place didn’t screw us over. Turns out we didn’t need those hours at all…
As promised, guns at the entrance to the park and much confusion as to where to pick up the fastrack from.
Somehow ended up at Vol Don’t care first.
#7 Vol D’Icare
Highlight: Didn’t break down on us. Did later. Lowlight: Almost broke down on us. Block brakes took it to about 1Mph.
Keen to test my French, the info man nearby obliged with the French words “Zeus, Left and Photo” which I worked out to be Zeus, Left and Photo.
Picked up fastrack where Zeus left his photos and immediately went to see what #8 Tonnere de Zeus had to offer. I think my bag had a better time of it than I did, as it was forced onto the ride with me. The experience was all a bit underwhelming in the moment, but it’s slowly improving in my mind the more I think about it since. It’s got length, I’ll give it that. Highlight: A couple of corners I like to call the thigh wobblers. Lowlight: A couple of corners I like to call why do these exist.
#9 Goudurix
The notorious Vekoma looper is back on 2 trains thankfully. Really don’t see the issue with this thing, seems I laugh in the face of these rides people call awful. Just strap yourself in and feel the Gs. Highlight: Shouting about how alright the ride was as it hit a wonky corner and my bag goes flying across the floor of the car. Lowlight: So much unjustified hate.
#10Pégase Express is a good little ride with a fair amount of entertainment going on. You get quite a substantial journey out of it over the course of its many sections and it was a pleasant surprise not knowing much about this Gerstlauer family launch coaster. Highlight: Some train duelling going on with forwards and backwards cycles running at the same time. Lowlight: The bag policy started to bother me here. They’ve had some automatic dispensers installed in the station but don’t bother to use them. I’m now expecting to ride a B&M Invert with a bag wrapped round my foot…
Which may have made Ozlris more interesting.
#11 Ozlris
This thing didn’t deliver for me at all. To start with, it didn’t really impress me visually. Started in what should have been the best place – the outside seat at the back, on which the first drop gave me one swift baffes – French for punch to the head (so that’s more than Goudurix) and then it had a severely uncharacteristic rattle to it and did absolutely nothing interesting. It had weird tracking moments after the loop and after one of the many corners over mud (so that’s more than Goudurix). We both left the station and stood outside for a while thinking, not wanting to breach the subject to each other – “did this ride just kill B&M?” Gave it another chance later on an inside seat and it didn’t ride quite as crap or as boring. Half decent at best. Not what I wanted to be saying though. Highlight: Queue was quite good? Lowlight: I won’t say any more.
#12 SOS Numérobis (SOS El Nombre to me) Highlight: +1 Lowlight: I dunno, some jab at Ozlris being in the vicinity.
Rounded off the coasters in the park with #13 Trace Du Hourra (a Trail of Hurray). Good name for a cred run, we actually broke a new record for ourselves with most creds in a day here. One of the weaker Mack bobsleds. Didn’t get the theme. Highlight: Super efficient ride operations, haven’t praised them enough yet. Lowlight: Bag saga continues with the restraint trying to snap my phone in half upon exiting the ride.
Used the fastrack on Menhir Express the log flume for a laugh. It was my kind of messed up, with the weird rapid-like sections halfway down a tube sending waves over the side of the boat and then the surprise drop feature. A little too much French sweat in my mouth though.
Did the Madhouse, Le Défi de César at some point in all that and it was brilliant. Bit of a slow burner at the start of the preshows, but the fountain room was really great and I loved finally seeing a different take on the technology for the actual ride. It was very refreshing to see the screens on the wall and the swinging of the seats used to emulate the movement of a boat as opposed to a million other ‘it’s a room with some spooky stuff going on’ versions.
Narrowly avoided becoming part of a Samba (not the last time i’ll be saying that on this trip) in the form of a parade that was coming towards us and took shelter in a pizza restaurant to eat pizza and contemplate the park…
It’s alright I guess.
There’s a much better atmosphere than I was expecting and the operations are impressively quick. I suppose I just didn’t expect it be a one and done park. Since I knew of its existence, I’ve pictured it as quite a significant park on the theming and ride front, but there’s nothing at all now that makes me specifically want to come back for another visit. I had more fun on the mad house and the log flume than any of the coasters, and that doesn’t sit right somehow.
Best ride might have been Zeus as we wanted to give it another chance, but the queue was an hour long and trailing well out of the entrance before and after pizza, then it broke down. Couldn’t be bothered in the end and left the park early for some well needed rest.
