Coaster Hipster
Giga Poster
After missing out on Taron on my previous visit to Phantasialand last year, I was eager to make another trip there so I can see for myself if the coaster deserved so much hype. However, me and my 2 coasterfan friends decided to have some appetizers before with a little detour at Plopsaland! The curiosity around the little new woodie Heidi was tempting enough for us.
I hadn't made much research on the park and as a result I was quite disappointed to see the entrance... just a giant billboard. Looks kinda cheap in my opinion, and is all the more surprising considering the main plaza and some areas of the park are really decently themed.
The layout of the plaza itself is deceiving. At first I thought there was two big branches coming out of the main square leading to several parts of the park. Turns out the right 'path' leads to nothing. Feels like the park is trying to look bigger than it is really
We began our day with La Grande Vague, a pretty well themed Zamperla Disk-O. The rails are barely noticable with all the rockwork and scenery around, and I quite liked the cartoonish Viking theme. The ride itself was no surprise and felt the same as its counterpart at Nigloland.
Onto the first cred of the day (and of the year), Anubis, a Gertslauer launched coaster. Looks quite photogenic actually, I do fancy its dark turquoise rails.
The coaster was a mixed bag for me. On the plus side, it has a fun launch (there's a sudden acceleration that works pretty well) and a nice airtime at the bottom of the top hat, followed by a good Dive Loop. Aside from that however, the ride suffers from slight rattles at the bottom of the same Top Hat and a series of uneventful turns. But the worst part of the ride remains that twisted turnaround hill with no airtime. It is banked in such a way that makes me unwell and gives me nausea every time. Really unfortunate as the coaster had no wait all day and I could have enjoyed the launch and airtime pop more if it wasn't for the unconfortable sections.
We followed with a generic Pirate Boat (no pictures), and the second cred, Rollerskater. It is just an old Vekoma Junior with a few jolts here and there. +1
Next was Heidi the Ride, the main reason of our visit. It had a 20 minute-ish wait due to the slow 1 train operation on our first run, during which my Phantasialand fanboy friend noticably complained. I was more forgiving having experienced Six Flags America and its crappy 10 minute dispatches the summer before.
The new small woodie met my (moderate) expectations: a coaster with good, consistent speed, and many hops along the layout that provide little to no airtime (for an Intamin fanboy anyway) like most GCIs. Overall a fun coaster that is easily rerideable.
I could only find this picture of Supersplash. Interestingly this Mack ride isn't considered a coaster on rcdb. So no +1 I guess. Nice interaction with the Pirate Ship though (still no pictures).
After that we decided it was time to eat lunch and more importantly, shelter ourselves from the cold and slightly rainy weather in the indoor section.
Some rerides on Anubis & Heidi followed after the break, as well as a lap on Draak, the park's Mack e-powered. It's a little spead out compared to others of the same type except for the helixes. We actually had a fun time on it acting silly like pretending 'OMG it is more intense than GeForce' which I guess is one advantage of riding with other goons.
If you look closely enough you may find our final +1 of the day: Viktor's Race. An actually really old Zierer (1976!) well surrounded with foliage and trees. Again couldn't find any other pictures so I decided to cheat a little bit to show you what it's like:
(Courtesy of Plopsaland's website, yeah I'm shameless)
(A parking lot/woodie picture to round this up)
In short, Plopsaland is an uneven place to me. It has some really pretty areas like the Anubis building and to some extent, the new heidi zone. However, some other parts seem like they need more work and refurbishment. I still enjoyed the day and my several rides on Heidi though, and it was a nice gentle way to start 2017 credding for me
Part 2 @ Phantasialand will come very shortly!
I hadn't made much research on the park and as a result I was quite disappointed to see the entrance... just a giant billboard. Looks kinda cheap in my opinion, and is all the more surprising considering the main plaza and some areas of the park are really decently themed.
The layout of the plaza itself is deceiving. At first I thought there was two big branches coming out of the main square leading to several parts of the park. Turns out the right 'path' leads to nothing. Feels like the park is trying to look bigger than it is really
We began our day with La Grande Vague, a pretty well themed Zamperla Disk-O. The rails are barely noticable with all the rockwork and scenery around, and I quite liked the cartoonish Viking theme. The ride itself was no surprise and felt the same as its counterpart at Nigloland.
Onto the first cred of the day (and of the year), Anubis, a Gertslauer launched coaster. Looks quite photogenic actually, I do fancy its dark turquoise rails.
The coaster was a mixed bag for me. On the plus side, it has a fun launch (there's a sudden acceleration that works pretty well) and a nice airtime at the bottom of the top hat, followed by a good Dive Loop. Aside from that however, the ride suffers from slight rattles at the bottom of the same Top Hat and a series of uneventful turns. But the worst part of the ride remains that twisted turnaround hill with no airtime. It is banked in such a way that makes me unwell and gives me nausea every time. Really unfortunate as the coaster had no wait all day and I could have enjoyed the launch and airtime pop more if it wasn't for the unconfortable sections.
We followed with a generic Pirate Boat (no pictures), and the second cred, Rollerskater. It is just an old Vekoma Junior with a few jolts here and there. +1
Next was Heidi the Ride, the main reason of our visit. It had a 20 minute-ish wait due to the slow 1 train operation on our first run, during which my Phantasialand fanboy friend noticably complained. I was more forgiving having experienced Six Flags America and its crappy 10 minute dispatches the summer before.
The new small woodie met my (moderate) expectations: a coaster with good, consistent speed, and many hops along the layout that provide little to no airtime (for an Intamin fanboy anyway) like most GCIs. Overall a fun coaster that is easily rerideable.
I could only find this picture of Supersplash. Interestingly this Mack ride isn't considered a coaster on rcdb. So no +1 I guess. Nice interaction with the Pirate Ship though (still no pictures).
After that we decided it was time to eat lunch and more importantly, shelter ourselves from the cold and slightly rainy weather in the indoor section.
Some rerides on Anubis & Heidi followed after the break, as well as a lap on Draak, the park's Mack e-powered. It's a little spead out compared to others of the same type except for the helixes. We actually had a fun time on it acting silly like pretending 'OMG it is more intense than GeForce' which I guess is one advantage of riding with other goons.
If you look closely enough you may find our final +1 of the day: Viktor's Race. An actually really old Zierer (1976!) well surrounded with foliage and trees. Again couldn't find any other pictures so I decided to cheat a little bit to show you what it's like:
(Courtesy of Plopsaland's website, yeah I'm shameless)
(A parking lot/woodie picture to round this up)
In short, Plopsaland is an uneven place to me. It has some really pretty areas like the Anubis building and to some extent, the new heidi zone. However, some other parts seem like they need more work and refurbishment. I still enjoyed the day and my several rides on Heidi though, and it was a nice gentle way to start 2017 credding for me
Part 2 @ Phantasialand will come very shortly!
