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Dusting off Deutschland - Part 2: MovieBird

HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
Apologies, I’m doing it again. Another report about places we’ve just seen a few hundred times. I promise my next report will be somewhat more obscure.

Landed in Amsterdam and happened across a big stand in the supermarket with 10 euro off vouchers for Walibi Holland. Not this time lads.

Day 1 - Slagharen

Managed to grab a great deal for this place 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. Went straight to Gold Rush 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. Guess the figures are down to the resorty bit and not the rides.

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Gold Rush is a great little ride for its size. The back row seemed best for a crazy bit of upsidedownness after the reverse launch and then being forcefully dragged into the surprisingly steep drop of the top hat thing.

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Also rather attractive to look at.

Grabbed a panini from the plentiful shops along the walk to the Vekoma Junior, 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.

That’s the park really. Nicer atmosphere than I expected and Gold Rush makes the park completely worthwhile. Shame with so few creds they had to remove something else to get it in, 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. Had hyped this up rather a lot in my head, 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 75 minutes – nah mate. Mamba 75 minutes – nah mate.

Feng Ju Palace was down last visit so walked onto that first. Projection preshow was an interesting change to the many other 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 hot Asian girl or not?

River Quest was also down last visit so went for that next. Phantasialand complete.
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.

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Loved the dual elevator lift that has to merge into a single funnel, causing you to crash viciously into a wall mid drop. Bit of calm before the storm while drifting round to the whirlpool where the boat 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 bitching about his phone being wet and trying to adjust his pocket to which both ourselves and some locals have to say sit the f*ck 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. 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. Ah f*ck.
Ride close time 21:30. What the f*ck? Dreams shattered.
100 minutes of second hand smoke and disappointment later, nabbed the front row.
Exactly as good as I remembered it to be. Fun little sit down for the most part, weaving your way through rocks, track, buildings, everything, for a wonderful length of time. 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, TRIM and done.
Don’t get the fact people call it an intense ride. I could ride it all day non-stop with zero physical consequences. That’s not a negative at all, just, they’re wrong.

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Grabbed some tasty Taron bread from the Balder shop outside and headed round again.
Queue time 115 minutes. Ah f*ck.
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. Play it tactically and join them before it’s too late? I guess we’ll have to.
115 minutes of standing on a vibrating bridge, getting Raynaud Syndrome.
Sadly my friend 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 and the staff even pursued him into the toilets to shout at him and try and kick him out of Klugheim. Someone else was having a panic attack/mental breakdown in the queue and then the ride had a breakdown of its own.
1000 smoking Germans all start shouting and jeering at this announcement.
Another half hour later they get things up and running. I assume a significant portion of the main queue must have bailed through the door in the cattle pen section at the announcement because it dried up 2 trains before the SRQ. We are 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 will be empty for this last train. I take the chance and attempt to head round, but one of the staff 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 f*cking 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.

Caught up with my friend who had been wandering aimlessly around closed rides and being shouted at by more staff.
We lucked upon walking straight on to the last train of 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. It was exactly like @Coaster Hipster ’s night time POV of Ozlris. Dreams restored.
The ride was running like a beast at this time of night. 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.
Got back to the station. Everyone stayed 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 sh*t atmosphere.

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Got caught up in the masses in Berlin as the fireworks were coming to a close, to the tune of Chiapas (disco edition). Unfortunately we were the only people in the park to chant CHIAPAS! along with it.

Got stuck in the car park for an hour queueing to leave, K-Pop on full volume, cutting up a million people and getting cut up by a million more.
Got to the hotel.
Died.
 
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HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
Day 2 – Movie Park Germany

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 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 sh*t emanating from the view of an SLC and the ‘worst wooden rollercoaster in the world’.

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A 10 minute walk 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 Star Trek.

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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 be 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. 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 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 things going on throughout the layout. The sequence of elements is very unique but natural and the inversions in particular just feel so... right.

Swiftly and successfully moved onto Van Helsing 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. Really enjoyed this one as well. Good theming throughout the layout, which is finally different from every other Gerts Bob in existence. Nearly lost it upon seeing the second lift had tyres, my mind filling with dirty thoughts about a launch or something and then completely missed everything that were going on in that section. Managed to catch up on all the details with another ride later on.

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2 for 2 so far Movie Park. Why does no one like you? On to the smaller creds.
This area was far from ideal, junior queue looked grim, tried and failed to suck up the queue for the mouse which looked OK, then got queue jumped by about 10 people and saw all the cars starting to stack in the station. Caved and bought the speedy pass from the 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.

Mouse was made much more interesting than it should be by 2 excitable Asian girls having the time of their lives behind us.

Junior was 2 laps of meh, with 500 smoking Germans staring from a now doubly grim queueline.

We were even asked which seat we wanted on the SFC. The response? Don’t care, got the cred.

Went for Mystery Quest while in the area and got dumped about halfway through the queue in a corridor of about 35°C. It was a fun rapids. 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 thing that exceeded my expectations here. The ride bit 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, but the pre-shows and build up to the ride were rather impressive. Shame the dinosaur in the exit is for optional viewing. After the comment from the temple bloke about some of them may have escaped, I wanted one to jump out of the waterfall and the bridge to collapse from under us as we left the ride room. Too far?

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With a bit of luck Star Trek was down to 15 minutes, assumingly because they had just added the second train at 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 it 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. 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 or something. The spectacle all feels a little unnecessary to the ride itself as it stands.

Time to see what’s the worst they can throw at us. 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 and then 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 Bandit.
The lift was over surprisingly quickly and then ‘Oh God, Oh God....... Nope it’s fine’. We recalled the statement ‘worst wooden rollercoaster in the world’ to each other as it took the first Balder 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, got spited by a show time. (Yes, I keep saying these wrong, but the dark ride names all seemed so generic to me they’d just blend into one, or something else, whenever I said them).
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 ass 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 Bandits, 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, 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. I found myself willing it to hit more things as it went on.

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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. 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 bit and a cool projection effect. Then some backwards running away from collapsing stuff, 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.

Satisfied with what we had achieved, it was time to assess our coast2coaster 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 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, this thing.

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Scaled the stairs to the top and jumped on. Good fun for its size, with a fairly exposed feeling in the tubs and at least a noticeable amount of force involved. Job done.

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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 plane out of mainland Europe.

There was.
 
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Coaster Hipster

Giga Poster
Went for Mystery Quest while in the area and got dumped about halfway through the queue in a corridor of about 35°C.

I thought Mystery Quest was at Phantasialand! Or was it a big lie I wasn't told about? :p

That cred at BillyBird seems more drawn out and taller than your regular kiddie/family. Nice location next to the lake too!


MoviePark looks alright, but there's so much competition around. I'm still looking forward to GhosterForce and Star Trek though. Glad you liked it :)
 

Hixee

Flojector
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
Social Media Team
It seems as though you've combined Mystery Castle and River Quest at Phantasialand. Now that'd be some freaky hybrid ride.
You should see River Castle... ;)

Yay for BillyBird! Always loved the idea, and think it looks secretly quite fab.
 

Mysterious Sue

Strata Poster
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 sh*t emanating from the view of an SLC and the ‘worst wooden rollercoaster in the world’

What an entrance! Gotta be on par with Drievliet.

I agree that the park isn't as bad as many people make out. I think it's just surrounded by higher quality parks so always feels the poorer sibling. Adore the Neverending Story rapids and the random German John Cleese.
 
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