After no where near enough sleep we were soon up again and on our way to Movie Park Germany.
Movie Park Germany
This was a park that until they added their brand new Mack launch coaster I was completely uninterested in visiting. The line up seemed weak, the park looked run down and I’d heard many horror stories on the operations of the park. Now while the park is far from perfect and I could agree to some extent to those statements, I ended up having a really nice time in the park, so let’s go into it.
Star Trek: Operation Enterprise – The 3rd reason we came on this trip, Mack’s brand new and first ever shuttle launch coaster and of course it’s really good.
The theming in the queueline and preshow areas is amazing, I know nothing of Star Trek but was still blown away, if you were a fan I’m sure this would be incredible.
Coaster wise it was very comparable to yesterday’s Gold Rush and I’d struggle to clearly say one was better than the other.
Gold Rush is probably more intense, the launches hit harder and the airtime (though much less) is stronger.
Star Trek is longer, has more airtime moments and has a more exciting layout taking alot more risks.
While it’s the least memorable Mack launch I’ve ridden it’s still a super fun coaster and easily the best in the park.
Van Helsing’s Factory – I’ve never really been a fan of Gertslauer Bobsled coasters but Van Helsing changed that because this enclosed horror themed coaster is fantastic fun.
Extremely well themed inside and out and featuring a coaster that kicks serious ass. The dark setting makes everything feel really fast and for this coaster type things do get surprisingly intense at parts.
After a quick walk around to gauge crowds we decided to get the one go on everything except Star Trek fastpass because we weren’t feeling up to queueing that long for the park’s less worthy attractions, plus we really wanted another go on Van Helsing and that had now gotten quite busy. This ended up saving us so much time that we were able to fit in several more Star Trek laps even though we had to queue for it.
Mystery River – Movie Park’s rapids ride and it was such good fun. Violent rapids, hauled round parts of the course and the theming was so weird it was great. In short, Mystery River had a real character to it and thankfully this would become a theme today.
There was masses of food options to choose for lunch but Heartline wanted to go with Asian food and I really enjoyed it, very well priced too if I remember right.
Lost Temple – My first ever immersive tunnel and now I want more because this was great fun.
MP-Xpress – SLC and what an example of one it was too. Hidden at the back of the park, looking abandoned, covered in rust and I haven’t even told you how it rode. Well, mostly fine but then several moments it felt like something utterly awful was occuring. Me and Heartline were crying with laughter when we hit the brakes and how often does that happen on SLCs?
Bandit – Branded by many as one of the worst wooden roller coasters on Earth but in reality it’s completely fine and actually quite a fun coaster. Much like MP-Xpress, me and Heartline spent most of Bandit laughing out loud. I said as we left the lift, “the worst wooden roller coaster on Earth…”, then when it wasn’t that statement suddenly became the funniest thing ever.
Time Riders – John Cleese: The Ride. This simulator based attraction was class. The preshows just kept coming and get more and more funny and then the simulator itself is brutal as all hell, I came off bruised. I loved it.
Then I decided I needed crepes to calm my nerves and they were really nice, seriously good food showing at this park.
Burmuda Triangle – We probably couldn’t have a picked a better ride to end our day at the park than this wonderful, campy and incredible special effects filled water ride that’s set inside a freaking volcano.
If you’re visiting Movie Park Germany just for the coasters you may walk away disappointed but I’d strongly advise you to find the time to ride their dark/water rides because other than Star Trek and Van Helsing that is where the park truly shines. It was certainly the discovery of them that helped make my time in the park so enjoyable, I’m so glad we decided to get the fastpass or my opinion of the park may have been dramatically different.
We had a couple of hours spare after finishing with Movie Park, so we drew up a plan to go ride a rather unique coaster that was on route.
BillyBird Park Hemelrijk
As the sat nav told us we were going to arrive 5 minutes before the last entry time, we decided to phone the park to let them know we were coming. The lady on the phone was really friendly and told us not to worry about it.
When we got to the park we were able to put a face to that friendly voice as the same lady sold us discount late entry tickets and lead us into the park via a special staff only entrance, what a fantastic welcome.
Famileachtbaan – My first Tube Coaster, a relaxing coast to the beach while celebrating our victory of getting here in time.
There was nothing else of interest at the park so we got a slush and just relaxed for a while before our drive back to the airport, where our plane was delayed by the standard 2 hours.
This trip was formed around 3 key ideas, ride Taron at midnight at Phantasialand, ride the brand new Gold Rush at Slagharen and ride the brand new Star Trek: Operation Enterprise at Movie Park Germany. 2 out of 3 ain’t bad…
Day 1
We departed from Gatwick late due to it “being real busy in the sky lads”, this was slightly more a problem than normal because we were cramming in lots today but ultimately it wouldn’t be Gatwick Airport who would ruin our plans for today.
The car hire situation went about as well you’d expect, we ordered a Fiesta and drove away in a tiny Toyota hybrid but not before we emptied the back seat of 6 child seats while the attendant was shouting at us, it wouldn’t the last time I was shouted at today either…
Slagharen
After an hour and a half driving we were at Slagharen and despite it being the 2nd most visited park in the Netherlands queues were very managable.
I’d read mixed to negative thoughts on the park before but it’s fine, not much in the way of rides I’m interested in but the park is nice enough.
Gold Rush – We powered straight to the park’s brand new Gertslauer shuttle Infinity coaster and if looks could kill, seriously Gold Rush has one of the most beautiful colour schemes I can think of, looking extra special on Gertslauer’s fantastic track design, ok I’ll calm down now.
The coaster itself is really good. Relaxing forwards launch to get you moving, thrilling backwards launch that gives insane hangtime as you crawl up and stall on the dive loop, then a final intense forwards launch to get you onto the main layout. A layout that’s full of punchy ejector air and smooth graceful inversions.
Gold Rush uses the lap bar version of the Infinity trains which means you’re in for unnerving amounts of freedom which as mentioned makes stalling on the dive loop a real treat.
After 3 laps on Gold Rush we grabbed a bite to eat and rode the park’s other mine train themed coaster before getting back on the road.
As mentioned in my introduction one of the key reasons for this trip was to ride Taron at midnight during Phantasialand’s 50th birthday special event. This wouldn’t come to be and infact I’d end up having a very frustrating time at the park. What makes this quite funny (in hindsight) is that this was my 2nd trip to the park and the 2nd time I’d walk away disappointed in a park so many in the community rate as the best in the World.
After 2 hours of maxing our terrible car on the autobahn we arrived at the park and immediately things went South. The car parking man literally screamed at us for not parking close enough to the car infront. Then we tried to enter the park through the 2nd entrance next to River Quest and Feng Ju Palace and got shouted at again and told to walk round. So we walked round to the main entrance where the 2 women greeting people stared right through us without saying a word, what a welcoming start to the World’s best theme park!
Feng Ju Palace – The park’s Chinese themed madhouse attraction was closed on our last visit so that’s where we headed first and I really enjoyed it.
River Quest – River Quest was also closed the last time we were here and my God am I happy to have finally experienced this utterly terrifying water ride.
This thing scared me to death, causing me to seriously doubt it wasn’t going to drown me either with the stupid amounts of water it dumps on your head or via the boat flipping during the unthinkable elements it throws at you. For that reason, I loved River Quest.
With the only 2 rides missing from last time ticked off it was time to spend the rest of the evening/night riding Taron until we bled.
We walked over to the beast to be confronted by 2 awful pieces of news, 1 terrible and 1 unforgivable. The queue time was currently 110 minutes, oh and the queue will be closing at 21:30.
They were closing the queue for Taron at half 9 in order to have the area cleared by half 11 for a fireworks show. You may be thinking, well yeah they obviously need to do that for health and safety but I’ll counter that with 2 thoughts. Could they not have launched the fireworks from a different area and have their star attraction running late into the night as their website implied? Also, talking about their website, I went through the event page in detail several times before ordering tickets and there was no mention of Taron closing at 21:30. For reference, Blackpool Pleasure Beach tell you on their website every single attraction that’s closing early for their fireworks well in advance.
Well Taron’s what we came for, we’d better get into that 110 minute queue right now and stop wasting time if we’re going to even get 2 rides this evening.
Taron – We were already angered but the Taron queue tried it’s best to make it worse. 110 minutes of people standing far too close, vaping, drinking, smoking and shouting, normally I’m quite good at blocking out crap like that but this was a struggle.
As for the coaster, it’s still top 20 and one of the best coasters in the World, it’s just such a shame that you have to go through so much effort to ride it. Both times we’ve visited now (first time was a weekday), the queues for Taron have been long and disgusting, it doesn’t give you the chance to properly bond with a coaster when you can’t ride it many times a day.
We knew we’d have to get straight back into the stupid queue as soon as we got off Taron in order to just get 2 rides today, however we were hungry now, so we quickly grabbed a pizza from the pizza place in Klugheim. The man serving there was an absolute asshole, where does the park get it’s staff from?
The queue for Taron was now easily over 2 hours so we decided we’d try single rider, this was a terrible decision.
About an hour into the queue I got stomach issues (probably from the previous time queueing) and needed to bail out to the toilet. While in the cubicle an older sounding German lady starts shouting and trying to smash the door down. This must be a case of mistaken indentity I tell myself, then it happened again. Maybe a drunk I think, then it happened again. 10 minutes later I emerge to see it’s a cleaner lady and she’s not happy. She starts getting right in my face shouting at me, of course in German. I don’t know what’s going on, maybe she thinks I’ve done something wrong? “I’m sorry my German isn’t very good”, I calmly tell her, “YOU MUST LEAVE!”, she screams back. “Why?”, while washing my hands I make out through her angry shouting in both German and English that they are closing the toilets at 9 for the fireworks… This has to be a set up right?
Knowing I can’t rejoin the single rider queue I decide to go for a walk, then almost immediately a man comes running over and shouting I can’t walk that way, when I ask why he mumbles something about the fireworks and points me down another path. This is getting silly now.
The next hour was spent on my own, walking around in the rain, wandering between newly closed paths and uncomfortably busy open ones, not quite the midnight Taron I came here for.
Black Mamba
I managed to reunite with Heartline and we powered to Black Mamba the park’s B&M invert in time to get a few very memorable laps, it was these rides that took my mood from livid to just very disappointed.
The staff on Mamba were incredible, they were going absolutely insane, it was an awesome sight.
Our 3 rides went as such.
1 – Pitch black and the coaster hauling way more than it did for us on our last trip.
2 – Fireworks going off, so that every time you inverted you got to watch the show and once again everything felt faster.
3 – After lap 2 we came into an empty station with the staff still going crazy and they sent us straight round for a 3rd, with the fireworks still going off, it’s a shame finding an experience like this at Phantasialand is like finding a needle in a haystack.
We were completely shattered now after a very long day and both completely done with the park, so clearly the best thing for us was taking over an hour to leave the car park while the staff just stood and watched instead of trying to organise it.
Another trip to Phantasialand, another disappointment, hopefully our 3rd trip won’t be so bad but I’m not holding my breath.
Thanks for reading, click here for part 2 of this report where we visit Movie Park Germany and BillyBird Park Hemelrijk!
The opening of Taron at Phantasialand resonated particularly strongly with me this year. Aside from the almost unprecedented levels of theming that looked to be going into such a high thrill attraction, the park decided to stake out the claim of ‘fastest multi-launch coaster in Europe’, taking the title from my favourite ride in the world, Helix, who never claimed to care about such trivialities. It demanded to be checked out and a trip was promptly planned around it, flying into Amsterdam and picking up a few new parks and rides along the way.
Day 1 – Drievliet
Our first stop was this unassuming Dutch park, hidden away in what mostly resembles an industrial estate. We initially parked on the wrong side of the grounds, getting stuck behind a fence and staring in at a wild mouse ride in confusion. With some further guidance, we drove back around the perimeter, through some iron gates and across loose tarmac into the actual car park.
It was a whirlwind tour of the park once we finally managed to step foot inside, as we had other places to be the same day.
The first thing we came to was Twistrix, an unconventional Maurer spinner with a train of cars rather than their usual single 4 seaters. It’s a little on the small side and this results on not much of anything happening, but it’s a different experience at least.
Formule X
The star attraction here is undoubtedly this Maurer X-Car. Though a short ride, it manages to pack a surprising amount of fun into a small footprint by use of a quick launch and many unconventionally shaped elements that weave around each other. It never quite gets intense at any point, but the forces it provides are certainly interesting. If anyone needed a good gateway coaster into the world of inversions, this would probably be my most recommended.
The wild mouse we were staring at from the outside earlier is called Kopermijn, the 3rd and final Maurer coaster in the park. Very standard stuff, nothing to report.
Dynamite Express is a Mack powered coaster, bucking the loyalty trend. Again nothing out of the ordinary here, another good family ride.
And with that, the park was complete. Certainly worth the visit for Formule X but otherwise entirely unremarkable in the grand scheme of things. I’m not sure they can do a whole lot to improve anything either, seemingly being rather landlocked by their inelegant surroundings.
We soon hit the road again to what was billed to be the more significant park of the day.
Toverland
Our first impressions of the place weren’t great, entering through what can only be described as a warehouse. The website would have you believe they were marketing themselves as a fantastic fairytale of a park, like a smaller Efteling, which is a dangerous comparison to draw upon.
Within this warehouse was cred number 1 – Boomerang. Thankfully it isn’t an actual boomerang, but a custom Vekoma junior. It was surprisingly rough for the size but otherwise inoffensive.
As you move into the outdoor section of the park, things begin to look a little nicer.
The area surrounding the front half of their GCI woodie is nicely themed. The queue leads you into the centre of the structure and then up the stairs into the loading gates, where the exhilarating fly-through portion of the track can be witnessed – a train loudly bursting through the upper half of the station and scaring the anticipating next riders.
Troy was my 200th rollercoaster and though a solid package, it did leave a little to be desired. It’s fast paced throughout and rides with the slightly rough and ready vigour that all good wooden coasters should do, but my main issue lies in the fact that there are no standout moments whatsoever. Previous experience with GCIs had shown me that they can have unpredictable forces in their strangely shaped corner transitions and their generally twisty layouts often favour this type of sensation over any more traditional airtime. Troy lacked either of those things and while I can’t say it was a bad ride by any means, I have no way of really defending it either.
A ride I can comfortably say is bad is the Vekoma motocoaster. Getting into the motorbike seats is difficult and the resultant riding position is just hard to enjoy, with your back bent over by an awkward lump of a restraint that keeps pushing against you and any force on the ride only enhancing the discomfort.
The Mack spinner was much better. The fairytale aspect of the park finally shines through in the intricate station for this ride and some onboard audio in the trains makes it even more enjoyable. In terms of the coaster itself, the spinning was a little unpredictable. Over our three laps, we only had one in which the rotation properly got going and the ride got particularly enjoyable and intense because of it. The times that the cars didn’t spin so much, it did feel like it was holding back from its otherwise good layout.
With all the creds done for the day, we had a late lunch in the indoor section before queuing for Maximum Blitz Bahn. The ride is a Bobkart – a single seater vehicle in a trough track, externally powered like a dodgem car that the rider is able control, to an extent, throughout the layout. What makes this one stand out is the incredible theming in the queue. Strong smells, an incredible attention to detail and wacky contraptions line the tightly enclosed pathway and far outweigh the actual ride experience, which due to throughput was stopping me from going full speed at any point and therefore competing with the ‘best times of the day’ board at the end.
I liked Toverland enough. It had a decent set of attractions, nothing outstanding. There are some signs here and there that show a good effort towards being the type of park they appear to be aiming for, but there’s still a fair amount of work to be done to make it more cohesive.
I’ve subconsciously left this park as the last place of significance in Germany, mainly due to low expectations. Since they went and got Helix trains (and a new ride to go with them), I couldn’t hold off any longer.
The day started strong with nearly getting waved into an empty field which had nothing to do with the park, then getting waved into more overflow car parks and finally a strong smell of excrement emanating from the view of an SLC and the ‘worst wooden rollercoaster in the world’.
Day 2 – Movie Park Germany
A 10 minute walk around the perimeter, stuck behind smokers, was made slightly better by the skyline being punctuated by some glamorous Mack track. Some rare perfect timing allowed us to be amongst the first in the park and some forward planning meant we knew exactly where to head to be amongst the first on the new attraction.
#1 Star Trek: Operation Enterprise
Even the first time round, I found the preshow sections to be a little tedious. The first set of screens were just being blocked by other uninterested guests as some bloke I hadn’t heard of was talking. The beam me up section didn’t really have as good of an impact as it should have. The bridge however was very impressive to someone who knew what it was supposed to look like and the use of the screen there seemed most relevant, if you weren’t all restricted to queuing in a small portion of the room and, again, couldn’t see it past other guests.
The free for all seating choice was a welcome feature in the station. The one train operation was not. Started off in the front and felt right at home in those amazing seats. I liked the ride itself a lot. Combined with the triple launch trickery at the start, you get a decent length out of it, particularly in comparison to Gold Rush the previous day and there’s a good mix of sensations going on throughout the layout. The sequence of elements is very unique but flows completely naturally and the inversions in particular just feel so… right.
#2 Van Helsing’s Factory
Swiftly and successfully moved onto the indoor Gerstlauer Bobsled to beat the rush. 15 minutes and we were on, just enough time to appreciate what was in the queue but not long enough for it to become painful. I really enjoyed this one as well. Great interactive theming throughout the layout, which itself is finally different from every other one of these installations in existence. I nearly lost it upon seeing the second lift had tyres, my mind filling with dirty thoughts about a launch happening and then completely missed everything that was going on in that section. Managed to catch up on all the details with another ride later on.
2 for 2 so far Movie Park. Why does no one like you? On to the smaller creds. This area was far from ideal, the Vekoma Junior queue looked grim, tried and failed to suck up the queue for the Wild Mouse which looked OK, then got queue jumped by about 10 people and saw all the cars starting to stack in the station.
We caved and bought a speedy pass from the nearby Nickolodeon shop instead. Yes this pass is good value as it puts you straight onto all 3 creds in the sort of manner that makes you feel a little too superior and you get dirty looks from everyone else. The power of money.
#3 Ghost Chasers, the aforementioned mouse, was made much more interesting than it should be by 2 excitable Asian girls having the time of their lives behind us.
#4 Backyardigans: Mission to Mars, the aforementioned junior was 2 laps of meh, with 500 smoking Germans staring at us from a now doubly grim queueline.
We were even asked which seat we wanted on the Vekoma Suspended Family Coaster, #5 Jimmy Neutron’s Atomic Flyer. The response? “Don’t care, got the cred.”
Went for Mystery River while in the area and got dumped about halfway through the queue in a corridor of about 35°C. It was a fun rapids ride. Didn’t understand what was going on, but a decent amount of theming and water related peril through both indoor and outdoor sections.
Narrowly avoided a samba while leaving the area through a parade and stopped for a bite to eat, already reflecting on how this park is much better than its reputation.
Decided on the Lost Tunnel next, skipping over a gruesome looking 75 minute queue for a very lengthy ride experience. Another attraction that exceeded my expectations here. The ride portion itself wasn’t particularly good for an immersive tunnel as there was little interaction between the dinosaurs on screen and our vehicle as a presence in their world, or even between the 2 sides left and right, but the pre-shows and build up to the ride were very impressive. It’s a shame the dinosaur in the exit path is for optional viewing only. After the comment from the temple bloke about “some of them may have escaped”, I wanted an animatronic to jump out of the waterfall and the bridge to collapse from under us as we left the ride room. Too far?
With a bit of luck Star Trek was down to 15 minutes, assumingly because they had just added the second train at long last. Suffered the preshows again and grabbed our second go in the back. I enjoyed spotting a couple of extra details this time, such as the screen in the room with the transfer track reading ‘uploading evasive manoeuvres’, but one thing that really doesn’t help the whole experience is that it creates far too much build up when the ride itself is almost completely unthemed and there is seemingly no conclusion to the story. I felt they could have at least housed the brake run and had a quick video saying ‘well done lads, you saved the crew/you’re now Locutus of Borg.’ The spectacle all feels a little unnecessary to the hardware itself as it currently stands.
Time to see what’s the worst they can throw at us. #6 MP-Express the SLC is great before you even get on it. The industrial estate themed fastrack queue of unpaved stones and dirt through rusty fence towards a service road followed by old metal stairs into the side of an ageing warehouse is hilarious. The ride itself was again just comedy, no nasty roughness at all, just a weird forward and back sort of pumping action through some of the inversions which caused many surrounding screams of agony, while I can’t stop laughing at it all.
It feels like there’s nothing steel can do to me these days, but I have developed a slight fear of bad woodies after Grand National tried to take my hobby away from me. So it was with significant trepidation that we boarded #7 Bandit. The lift was over surprisingly quickly and then “Oh no, oh no……. Nope it’s fine.” We recalled the statement “worst wooden rollercoaster in the world” to each other as it took the first uneventful corner and then spent the rest of the ride in a laughing fit. Nothing wrong with it at all, actually quite enjoyed it.
Over to Time Bandits, where we got spited by a show time. (Yes, wrong name, but the dark ride names all seemed so generic to me they’d just blend into one, or something else, whenever I said them at the time).
Took our re-ride on Van Helsing to fix that. Amazed myself with how much I missed on the second lift, like the car bonnets jumping about, the big scary wolf/bear thing coming out at you from amongst the cars and then the screen of the flying demon thing carrying you up high and dropping you as you take the drop. Brutal laterals are a signature of this ride type and when it’s that dark in the back seat, you can’t even see it coming. Great stuff.
Over to Time Riders, straight in. Another impressive set of theming and preshows. The actor was really into it for the first section, and then the second section looked so good we were joking to ourselves about whether there is a ride at all? Or is this the final act. It could have been. Very glad there was a ride, as the simulator is viciously fun. Multiple moments of it just feeling like a car crash as you hit something on screen and get properly chucked about in your seat. I found myself willing it to hit more things as it went on.
Grabbed an ice cream before the last ride on our list, Bermuda Triangle. More expectations exceeded, having only seen the outside drop with an angle of about 10 degrees into nothing but station. There’s a huge surprise drop in the dark at the start that felt like it went on forever, followed by some weird old theming in the underground section and a cool projection effect. Soon after, you’re running away backwards from collapsing scenery, a little disappointed it wasn’t a drop. Finally the anticlimactic finish we all knew was coming. The boat also tried to kill us by nearly tipping over as we left.
Overal Movie Park Germany provided a good day out. It probably needed Star Trek to finally make it particularly significant, but the combination of multiple decent dark rides and at least a couple of above average coasters gave me a lasting positive impression.
Satisfied with what we had achieved in the park, it was time to assess our cred options for the journey back to the airport. A bit of research while tearing up some German roads brought us to the conclusion that it was “BillyBird or bust.” Sat nav would have us there for 5 minutes before last admission and we needed a fuel stop somewhere. This may be the time to mention it was by far the slowest hire car I’ve had in Germany, being a hybrid Yaris, but that wasn’t going to stop me. Eco mode off, stick it in ‘B’, draining all the juice from the unsatisfyingly linear engine and embarrassing endless better cars on the autobahn, the run was put back into cred run.
BillyBird
Easily made it in time and what a nice place to stick a coaster. Just somewhere for the Dutch to chill out with very friendly staff, a lake, some chairs, an artificial beach, lots of stuff for kids to play on and most importantly, a cred.
#8 Familieachtbaan
Scaled the stairs to the top and jumped on. The ride is good fun for its size, with a fairly exposed feeling in the bathtub shaped cars and at least a noticeable amount of force involved. Job done.
Took advantage of some of the chilling out ourselves while we were there as there would no doubt be a couple of hours delay on an evening Easyjet flight out of mainland Europe.
Landed in Amsterdam early on a Saturday with Mega-Lite and happened across a big stand in the supermarket with 10 euro off vouchers for Walibi Holland. Not this time lads, we’re going slightly further afield with this hire car.
Day 1 – Slagharen
We had managed to grab a great deal for this park online, with some limited half price promo tickets. This ensured that it didn’t sting at all for a whole 2 creds and 1 hour spent there. Went straight to the new Gestlauer Infinity coaster and had a couple of rides on it, only about 15 minutes queue each time. For the time of year and ‘Netherlands 2nd most visited theme park’ it wasn’t crowded at all. I guess the figures are down to the resort as a whole and not just the amusement area.
#1 Gold Rush
Gold Rush is a great little ride for its size, using a triple launch system to get more out of a small footprint. The back row seemed best for a particularly crazy moment of hanging upside-down after the reverse launch and then being forcefully dragged into the surprisingly steep drop of the top hat.
It’s also rather attractive to look at.
Grabbed a panini from the plentiful shops along the walk to the Vekoma Junior #2 Mine Train, expecting a bit of a queue and planning to eat it there. Again the queue was really short, but had time to wolf the food down while watching some pitiful argument about the height of some child that went on far too long. +1.
And that’s the park really. Nicer atmosphere than I expected and Gold Rush makes the park completely worth a visit. It’s a shame with so few creds they had to remove something else to bring in the new addition, would be great if they could expand somehow.
Soon found myself back on the autobahn for the 6th time in 2 years, heading down to Phantasialand for their final 50th Anniversary event day with midnight close. We had hyped this up rather a lot in our heads, dreams of ‘midnight Taron’ being at the forefront of the motivation to get this trip rolling in the first place. Unfortunately the park fell a little short of expectations again, although it has many of the ingredients required to be amazing, I’ve always found it a struggle to have the best of times here.
Phantasialand
Got directed to an overflow car park opposite the Ling Bao entrance where a man was aggressively shouting instructions to cars in an attempt to maximise efficiency in space. This seemed to be an afterthought as the first half of the car park was already filled in completely the opposite manner to his mission. This didn’t seem to bode well for how busy it was going to be, but efficient German operations right?
Wasn’t allowed in entrance 2 for some reason, so took the long hike round to the main entrance. Had a quick scout of queue times which went as follows: Maus au Chocolat = 75 minutes – “nah mate.” Black Mamba = 75 minutes – “nah mate.”
Feng Ju Palace was down on our last visit so walked onto that first. The projection preshow was an interesting change to the many other Vekoma Madhouses around. It was amusing to start with as the robot thing kept bring out bigger and bigger weapons to fight with, but got a little repetitive when the bloke started shooting fireballs at us causing an animatronic to jiggle slightly 4 times in a row. Then the ride sequence came and not much happened except a projection on the floor near the end. Bit confused by the story on this one. Did he save the Asian girl or not?
River Quest was also down last visit so went for that next. Phantasialand complete. I donned my trusty Valhalla poncho and eagerly anticipated what my favourite Hafema boys would throw at me this time. The queue had a good build up, with a couple of spots in which boats were kicking up some nasty waves right into our path.
Loved the dual elevator lift that has to merge into a single funnel, causing you to crash viciously into a wall mid drop. There’s a bit of calm before the storm while drifting round to the whirlpool, where the boat suddenly isn’t even on water anymore and just starts spinning wildly, picking up speed, culminating in a catastrophic splash. One bloke in the boat stands up at this stage and starts grumbling about his phone being wet and trying to adjust his pocket to which both ourselves and some locals have to shout “sit down man, vertical drop any second!” Final drop wasn’t quite as mental as I had imagined, but still way beyond your average rapids ride. Great stuff.
After a bit of water maintenance, the moment of revisiting Taron had finally arrived. We entered Klugheim and paused for a second, waiting for the amazing characteristic 2nd launch sound. Moments later it hit and stupid grins were instantly brought to our faces. Queue time = 100 minutes. “Well that sucks.” Ride close time = 21:30. “Wait, what?” Dreams of ‘midnight Taron’ shattered. 105 minutes of second hand smoke and disappointment later, nabbed the front row.
Taron
The ride is exactly as good as I remembered it to be. A fun little sit down for the most part, weaving your way through rocks, track, buildings, everything, for what feels like a wonderful length of time. The second launch is probably still my favourite single moment of any ride. I love getting that feeling of ‘there’s more to come’ out of a ride, it’s a rare treat on coasters due to their inherent nature of losing momentum over time and Taron’s version of this is particularly vicious and spectacular. More marvellous mincing around follows the launch, TRIM BRAKE and you’re done. I simply don’t get the fact people consider it an intense ride. I could ride it all day like a rag doll, non-stop, with zero physical consequences. That’s not a negative at all, just, they’re wrong.
Grabbed some tasty Taron bread from the Balder shop outside and headed round again. Queue time = 115 minutes. “This isn’t going at all well.” We wouldn’t even get inside the entrance within the first 20 minutes and the 21:30 cut off time was dangerously approaching.
From a glance as we approached the station previously, there were only about 8 people in the single rider queue outside the station building. People were now powering into single rider, climbing over ropes on their way. Should we play it tactically and join them before it’s too late? I guess we’ll have to. 120 minutes of standing on a vibrating bridge followed, gradually getting Raynaud Syndrome. Sadly Mega-Lite didn’t stand the test of time and had to bail for the bathroom at this stage. There was zero chance of them letting him back in the queue and the staff even pursued him into the toilets to shout at him and try and kick him out of Klugheim. Meanwhile I was next to someone who was having an actual panic attack because of how awful the queue was and then the ride had a panic attack of its own. 1000 smoking Germans all start shouting and jeering at this announcement, you couldn’t make this stuff up.
Another half hour later they got the ride up and running again. I assume a significant portion of the main queue must have bailed in disgust through the door in the cattle pen section at the announcement because it dried up 2 trains before the SRQ did. We were all brought into the station at last. I get batched into the 2nd row for the last train of the day. Looking to my left, the front row will be empty for this last train. I take the chance and attempt to head round, but one of the staff members runs over to me and screams “NO!” in my face. 2nd row it is. So I got my ‘almost midnight Taron’, in the rain too. It was fanastic. This is also now the longest I have queued for any ride ever. Wouldn’t really expect that to have happened in Germany, but there you go.
After a confused phone call through the narrow and packed walkways of the park, caught up with Mega-Lite who had been wandering aimlessly around closed rides and getting shouted at by more staff. We lucked upon walking straight on to the last train of Black Mamba, back row. Well this was certainly memorable. The staff were cheering and thrusting as we left the station. The riders were chanting and singing, getting super rowdy and excited. Dreams restored.
The ride was running like a beast at this time of night and the firework display had just begun. Every inversion was filled with ‘OH MY GOD UPSIDE DOWN FIREWORKS’ and then disappearing back into the pitch black with an intense B&M invert swoop. The train pulled back to the station. Everyone stayed seated exactly where they were. “Again?” Well, alright then. More cheering, more thrusting, more chanting, more singing. MORE UPSIDE DOWN FIREWORKS, AHHHHHHHHHH! Why did Taron have such a terrible atmosphere?
We got caught up in the masses of the Berlin area as the fireworks were coming to a close, to the (disco edition) tune of Chiapas, the park’s log flume. Unfortunately we were the only people in the park to chant “CHIAPAS!” along with it. I thought it was more popular than that.
Then we got stuck in the car park for an hour queueing to leave, music on full volume, cutting up a million people and getting cut up by a million more. Got to the hotel, parked in a hedge. Died.
The second day was much more chilled out and I (temporarily) rediscovered my appreciation for taking it easy on parks. I had some vague plans of picking up a few +1s in the area but the previous day had temporarily put me off that sort of thing. That and it was raining heavily all day.
Day 2 – Toverland
So this place suddenly got lovely. I wasn’t particularly into the park last time, entering through a warehouse and not being overly enthralled by any of the rides.
The new entrance area looks great (not that these wet pictures taken from under an umbrella will do it justice) and the first few minutes of walking down the path with the new land on the left felt 100 times more like a theme park and shows they’re putting a lot of effort in.
I only really needed the new land so headed straight there first, to be told that both Fenix and Merlin’s Quest were temporarily unavailable. Oh. Then they looked a bit ashamed and said Dwervelwind was also down. “We recommend you start indoors.”
And that we did. Starting on the world’s nicest looking Bobkart vehicles. I had forgotten how well decorated the queueline was on this thing. The ride itself also seemed to be holding back less on the speed than last time, which had bothered me a bit. Perhaps because it was much quieter.
Took a token lap of Toos Express, foolishly sitting in the front row where the on-ride bell deafens you on every janky corner.
Don’t remember this attraction existing before. There’s a little house and garden to explore, for which you borrow a magic wand that you can point at sensors and set off effects. Great idea for a low key park.
Had a bit more of a mooch round the inside area until I noticed Fenix cresting the lift through a window. Don’t let that bird spite me.
I’ve got to start with praising the queue for this attraction. It’s absolutely gorgeous. I hadn’t really looked into anything about this ride so it completely caught me off guard, particularly for this park. They clearly mean serious business now. It begins with a dimly lit corridor that gives you that wonderful atmospheric change as soon as you step foot inside it. Dangerously narrow stairs take you down to a room with talking portraits on the walls, telling tales and setting the scene.
I really liked these other magical paintings that had very subtle screen effects bringing them to life.
The park was absolutely dead because of the weather so I had the entire queueline to myself and quite easily got lost in there for a long time exploring every detail. There’s a passing preshow section with projections and an animatronic before you come to the usual left or right split for a B&M Wing Coaster.
#1 Fenix
There is actually a rollercoaster at the end of all that and again the little pre-lift hill scene once you’re on the ride caught me off guard. ‘Come closer. You will not escape.’
I really liked it overall. The 90 degree turn at the top isn’t as ugly as I’d imagined once you see it in person and it gives you a bit of steam with which to enter the inverted drop, that then feels less sluggish than usual, particularly in the back when you get dragged into it. The bigger hill that follows works very well. I was in defensive mode from the rain and wearing my hood up but it would get ripped off every single time as I went flying over this element. Something about the shape of the track here and the landscape around it as well, makes it feel like you’re taking a huge jump feet first. The helices are forceful and bouncy, which I’ve grown to appreciate more on these as it just means there’s more momentum involved. I love the track layout doing a double crossing of the water and the whole aesthetic of it. My only real complaint is that it feels a bit short on ride time. I definitely bonded with Fenix while it tried to destroy me with the weather over many laps.
Over in the boathouse on the far side is the start of Merlin’s Quest. It has a little scene up above it’s own station that contains a good audio statement – ‘Never trust a water dwarf’. It’s a bit of a slow drag in the boat across the water to get itself underneath Fenix for the main part of the experience, though admittedly amongst nice surroundings. The indoor section is very well done with some good visuals and potentially the best smell on any ride in the forest section. Again that ends a bit too soon and you spend a lot more of your time drifting all the way back again.
The rest of the day was spent nabbing a few laps of the bigger coasters and dodging the heavier downpours by relaxing in the nice indoor area of the park.
Troy is mostly as I remember. A lot of fun, just doesn’t have a huge amount of significant sensations going on. Even though I had the added bonus of being waterboarded and completely unable to see, it didn’t chuck me around a lot or do anything particularly unexpected. It was running weirdly smoothly and quietly too.
Dutch Twist (Dwervelwind) was also an experience if only for not being able to see. I finally know what it’s like to ride like the Chinese do with your head awkwardly bowed at all times. The result – not comfortable. On board sound is a plus of course, but I think French Dwervelwind (Twist) rides better.
Didn’t do Booster Bike again as I don’t really like Vekoma Motorbike Coasters and it would have been deeply unpleasant.
A great day overall, much more enjoyable than the previous. Toverland took a massive leap in my books, I completed the legendary set of all B&Ms in Europe and had some great ride experiences too. I look forward to their future.
Not much to report on the way back home. The Chunnel seems to run all too smoothly these days. Feels like it’s building to something terrible one day.
The opening of Untamed at Walibi Holland was very exciting news for Europe and a perfect reason to put together another quick jaunt across the channel. The continent hasn’t had many RMCs yet and seeing a couple more start to appear feels almost overdue now. Of course I had to make the itinerary a little more hectic, cos that’s how I roll. Results may vary.
Did another stupidly early start for the chunnel (<03:00) in order to get to the first park of the day at opening time. Which worked perfectly. And that was the end of the success.
Bobbejaanland: The Revenge
I had beef with Bobbejaanland. I came here a few years ago on a busy summers day, on which they decided to reduce their opening hours on the spot and then close queues up to an hour sooner than those newly stated opening hours, leaving it to be one of the few parks, perhaps only, that I simply didn’t complete in time. The rides that I did do, sucked, hard.
#1 Fury
But this new one looks quite nice.
So I was with the masses heading to Fury as the gates opened, got to the entrance in amongst the first 10 people. To then stand there for an hour, as for some unadvertised reason they didn’t open this ride or Typhoon until 11, so it felt like a bit of a waste of an early start. Queuing an hour to beat the queue.
They’ve changed the quirky voting system on whether the ride goes forwards or backwards from how it was originally set up so that there’s now a split in the station for ‘I definitely want forwards’ or ‘I want to vote’. I was dead set on getting a backwards ride on my first lap, as I believed it would offer the best experience when totally unexpected, not knowing the layout or what it had to offer. It didn’t look like it was going to work out as I was the only one in my row to push the button to vote backwards, but the train hit the turntable and turned left. Yes! I punched the air. There was no reaction at all from anyone else sadly.
That launch is pretty punchy isn’t it. Have to say the ride wasn’t quite what I wanted out of it. I’m on a bit of a high with my Infinities at the moment and this just wasn’t delivering on the same level of interesting sensations. Backwards was a lot of fun, quite disorientating, but lacked anything really standout or substantial. It just feels like even a single strong kick of airtime somewhere would have given it the edge to go from good to great. Failing that, the final spike could have done something crazy like Mystic to end the ride on a high instead of just being a bit of a vibe killer.
I do like what they’ve done with the new area themed to legends. Typhoon doesn’t deserve to be a legend even with a fresh lick of blue paint, but at least it doesn’t look like a fairground ride any more and it’s a nice idea to have a circular hub of pathway with several ride entrances coming off of it.
While I was waiting away the first hour for that to open, the park had had a chance to fill up a bit, meaning Naga Bay had a bit of a queue. I did it when it was called Dizz and it was weak, so skipped it this time.
#2 Revolution
We got as far as the stairs in the queueline of Revolution on the previous visit before a ton of guests came spilling back down the queue towards us saying it was closed and making Xs with their arms. This time we walked straight on, past all the Virtual Reality faff and got to admire what appears to be the world’s longest roller coaster train. It’s a silly ride but quite funny. A massive indoor spiral lift leaves you thinking where’s the actual ride section? Then it slithers through a gap in the wall at the top and you do several drops and ~100 left hand turns through a narrow outer shell of the building while strobes go off and make it seem like you’re travelling really fast.
#3 Speedy Bob
Speedy Bob was another ride that got closed in our face half an hour early last visit. They were running it alright today and the ride itself rode butter smooth, almost unnervingly so. The park was now complete. Only took me 3 years.
Walked past Dreamcatcher. Don’t need that in my life again, let alone with VR added.
Gave Oki Doki (formerly Belgium’s best rollercoaster) a token lap. It has a good little first drop and a refreshing layout.
Did El Paso Special/Bench the Ride(?) There’s several bench rides I’ve done now and I don’t know one is the notorious one. The guns were potentially the most responsive of their type I had ever come across, which was impressive. The scenery was dated but amusing. Lots of donkeys, no hats.
Also gave Bob Express a token lap. It had a couple more weirdly shaped bits of track and random kicks to it than I remember. It could have done alright in my extensive rank the mine train list, if only it tried a bit harder to be a mine train.
So dogs are allowed on?
Did a forwards facing ride on Fury and pretty much felt the same about it. Tried for another backwards on the last go, but the system screwed me over. I had a whole row of people pushing backwards this time, then it turned right. Aww. I think it’s a bit of a cop out that they changed it to be honest, though I am personally glad I didn’t have to stay in the park any longer than planned just to beat the odds and get a taste of each direction if other guests were being particularly fussy about it.
Revenge over. The car park is here dumb and has no way to flow out in the middle of the day so you have to do an amazing reverse while people are still trying to come in for the first time. Still don’t really like this place. Next?
Walibi was the next stop, and should have been a 2 hour drive. It actually took over 4 hours because they had decided to close an entire motorway between the two countries, terrible detours occurred, then there was an accident and more terrible detours occurred. It was horrible. I felt every second of it eating into my riding time.
Walibi Holland
The mood didn’t lighten as I hit the roundabout at the entrance to the park, Lost Gravity theme blaring from my speakers to try and get me in the mood. Temporary yellow signs were up directing everyone to park in a field opposite, rather than the usual car park. The detour to get to this field went on for far too long, across several unpleasant surfaces. I do resent when I’ve been charged by a park for the privilege of parking on grass/mud.
An ugly temporary bridge was set up over the road and all the entrance plaza was all funnelled by a long series of 8ft high crowd control barriers, which also looked terrible.
Things didn’t improve inside as cutting through the first indoor section of the park was like walking into a nightclub. This place used to have a certain charm to it, but they seem to have embraced the Thorpe Park youth vibe that in reality no one actually wants to experience.
I don’t remember that top spin looking that ugly, Merlin’s castle looks dumb now it’s covered in graffiti and what the hell is this new area?
#4 Untamed
Oh yeah, that. Here comes RMC number 10.
I was very happy to see it, but the mood still didn’t lighten as i joined the single rider queue. The water feature out of the middle of the station leaks all over the floor and you have to wade across to the stairs. As soon as I settled in for the wait, 3 blokes join behind me and instantly start smoking directly into my face. This was the trend in pretty much every queue, all night. Ugh.
This may end up sounding a bit negative (what, like the rest of the day so far?), but obviously it’s an RMC and it’s still easily one of best things out there. My top 25 will shortly be adjusted to acknowledge this. I don’t know whether I should do this one as a blow by blow description of elements or just some overall thoughts. Normally I save the former for something I really fall for and this one just didn’t quite resonate with me. So let’s put the picky hat on, because I expect perfection from these things nowadays.
It has noticeably weak moments and sections: The first drop and speed hill are weak, compared to others. I don’t really dig the first inversion thing. It’s different yes, but it doesn’t do much of anything to the rider. It simply happens around you. Each of the turnaround sections just aren’t particularly exciting, this inversion is meh and that sideways thing only really works if you’re in the front of the train to get a bit of a kick into it.
What I love is basically the whole second half: The triple humpy bit that just keeps on giving. The insane hill section through the structure where everything incoming is well disguised. The crazy sharp S-bend slither into my favourite of the inversions, which also somehow manages to give you airtime coming out of it.
A mixed bag overall then. Some stuff I love in there, but many bits that just don’t flow well or keep the standard at top level throughout. It never truly kicked my ass with intensity at any particular point and it never gave me that life-affirming moment of contemplation on the brakerun, though I can appreciate that it’s a mighty fine ride.
Talking of mighty fine rides. Ahhhhhhh. For some reason over the last few years I kept doubting myself on how good I thought Lost Gravity was when it opened. But no, I am right, it’s stupidly fun. The first drop and speed hill combo is miles better than Untamed, the middle section is really quirky and enjoyable and then there’s a couple more hills at the end that just shouldn’t be that strong in force. Also it has flamethrowers. Love it.
Goliath is the only other ride I did that night and it just doesn’t hold up any more. It’s like a refined version of that stupid Superman one – 90% corners but at least the airtime actually works consistently. Entertaining, but had its day.
I had to pass through 3 scare zones when bouncing between these rides. I’m no Halloween event expert, but here’s my thoughts anyway:
The tree one by Untamed – A combination of moss monsters with rattles and people dressed like Valka from How To Train Your Dragon 2. Mostly an inconvenience because everyone just stands still in the middle of it with their phones out filming. Villains(?) – Some villainous looking actors and a small stage where they could stand and creep on guests. Mostly an inconvenience because everyone just stands still in the middle of it with their phones out filming. The pirate one – I quite liked it. Some nice purple mood lighting, good spooky pirate music and lots of bubbles filled with smoke floating around the area. Actors dressed like pirates, walking like zombies.
But I wasn’t there for that stuff, I was there for Untamed – night rides in particular. That section through the structure is completely in the dark, disorientating and amazing. Had a few laps with a few painfully long queues. The single rider never worked very well even though they had broken 1 seat on the back of one of the trains which you would think would guarantee a spot every cycle. Some questionable operations occurred – a group of about 9 people in the main queue started kicking off because they had split up from 2 friends who were in the single rider queue and had actually beaten them to the station. The proper response to this should be ‘The system doesn’t guarantee a shorter queue mate.’ The actual response? “You make a good point, let ’em through lads.” When it came to closing the queue, a couple of people that had just managed to make it inside before the staff could chain off the entrance were actually chased down and kicked out – which seemed a bit off/Phantasialand-esque.
So I got what I wanted out of the day, just not in ideal circumstances and Walibi Holland as a park took a massive blow for me.
And that was before the car park happened. I was kinda expecting it, as getting in to the place was such a faff, but as I cleared the bridge on the way out, hell on earth came into view. A million cars in mud at all angles all trying to merge with each other and leave, completely unable to go anywhere. Horns were going off constantly like a New York traffic jam with everyone shouting and being aggressive.
Luckily, being a late arriver, I was in the left third of the field which is split by 2 routes coming out. The middle and right thirds were the ones converging, so getting as far as the tarmac was comparatively easy for me. From there it was a slow crawl of at least another hour along the winding back path and out onto the main road. There’s gotta be a better way to end the day.
