BelGerAnd - June/July 2015

[JoshC.]

Hello all! Before I get onto trip reporting, just wanted to give a bit of background to the trip..

Before this trip, I had only been to 7 different parks - the 4 Merlin UK parks, Drayton Manor, Gulliver's World and Disneyland Paris. I latter of those I visited for my 3rd birthday and, in all honesty, I remember next to nothing about the trip. Living under 5 minutes away from Thorpe Park, for a long time, I was in a bit of 'theme park rut', happy to stay within the "Merlin Machine" and enjoy visiting the same parks over and over again. Naturally, as my enthusiasm in theme parks increased, so did my urge to visit new parks. I visited Drayton for the first time last July, and from that point, started planning and saving for a big-ish European trip with a some fellow enthusiasts. Eventually, after a lot of thinking and research, it all came down to 8 days, 7 parks, 3 countries - the parks we visited were:

Plopsaland de Panne (27th June)
Bellewaerde (28th)
Walibi Belgium (29th)
Phantasialand (30th)
Toverland (1st July)
Efteling (1st-3rd)
Bobbejaanland (4th)

As we were visiting Belgium, Germany and Holland, we squished the three countries together to get the working title of 'BelGerAnd' for the name of the trip. Unfortunately, that terrible attempt just sort of stuck (much like Stealth's project name). Doesn't quite compare to some of the cool-sounding trips on here anyway!

Since this is my first time doing TRs of parks I haven't visited before / didn't know much about before my visit, any feedback on the style of this would be great. I do plan on writing up reports from all the parks, so would be nice to do it in a way that people would want to read it!

Anyway, enough set up, let's get down to TR-ing...
An early start beckoned us - leaving to get the 5:15 ferry from Dover. Naturally, this meant we arrived at Plopsaland - a realtively short drive from Calais - ridiculously before the 10am opening...

The entrance area looks very nice.

We wandered around the local area to pass the time, and about a 5 minute walk away, we found a Belgian War Memorial. It was somewhat surprising to realise that a theme park was so close to a place like. We had a wander around and it really hits home...

With our respects paid, we ventured off to the world of Plopsa. First up was the coaster I was most looking forward to off the day, Anubis.

It's the first launched Gerstlauer I've done, and indeed the first rolling launch I've done. I was looking forward to it, after hearing many good reviews. After a near walk-on through the nicely themed queue, we were on. Simply put, the ride is fab - the launch is great fun, and then the ride that follows mixes pops of airtime, inversions and bits of force nicely together. I found going up the initial hill quite intense too. The ride flows really well and it's very smooth too. It's a little on the short side and lacks any substantial outdoor theming, but at the same time, it doesn't leave you feeling short changed. All in all, a great ride that is really enjoyable.

A somewhat understated entrance.

Couple of ride shots.

We then moved over to Rollerskater. This immediately caught my eye for one reason - the random theming. From a giant washing machine, bird in a cage to a turtle on a plate, the ride seemed a bit wacky. The coaster itself is fun, but the random bits of theming just make it a right laugh.

Lift hill

The infamous washing machine

Station building

We then ticked off another cred, by doing their powered coaster, De Draak. I loved the themed queue line, and the long layout that interacts nicely with the surroundings. Picks up some decent speed and it's nice that it goes round twice too.

De Station.

With temperatures soaring, we decided to cool down on De Boomstammetjes, the park's log flume. It was okay, had a nice double drop finale, but didn't get you wet enough really. By now we had realised something a bit odd - the park itself felt very very busy, but the queues themselves didn't really reflect that. Not sure if that's the norm for Plopsaland given their target market or not, but we weren't really going to complain, as it gave a nice atmosphere to the park, but meant we could try out all that the park had to offer.

With this in mind, we did a few of the filler rides, including Waterfietsen; some pedal swan boats. Was a very nice tour round the lake, though have to admit my legs were aching after a while! Two filler rides that we didn't get done during this little period, however, were their Teacups, which is still being given its awesome-looking retheme, and Rox-Flyer, their Star Flyer. Ah well.

Two rides of spite.

With some flat rides done and lunch out of the way, we moved over to Supersplash, the 'water coaster' which anyone would have a hard time calling a 'coaster'. It was probably our longest queue for the day, at about 20-25 minutes - quite nice that it was indoors too! Following an interesting lift sequence, the ride does a drop underneath a bridge, before coming back up and then giving a nice-looking splash and then meandering back to the station. The lift sequence is nice, but lacking anything substantial really. The drop I found a bit rough in all honesty, but the splash was nice - not wet of course, but was refreshing. I'm a bit unsure on it as an attraction - it takes ideas from a couple of different rides, but doesn't really do anything with them. A bit of a shame.

A shame I didn't get a shot with a boat in really.

We then planned to tick off the two remaining creds on park - Vleermius, the random suspended coaster, and Viktor's Race, the park's kiddie coaster. Unfortunately, it became apparent that Vleermius would spite us - it was closed with no obvious work being done to it. Shame, as it's something I did want to try out, but I'm sure I'll get to try something like it in the future. Viktor's Race, however, was open. Nothing really to say about it, merely one done for the coaster count.

Neither ride was very photo-worthy for me at the time, it would seem.

More wondering round the park was done afterwards, and getting in some rerides along the way. We were planning on heading over the to Wickieland to try out the Disk-o and splash battle over their, but noticed the Disk-o was closed due to it stalling, so we decided to leave that area till later. Instead, we worked our way over to the indoor area Maya Land, near the front of the park.

It's a great area for kids with some fabulous looking rides. The one that caught my attention the most though was De Waterlelies, their Zamperla Demolition Derby. After not getting on the one at Drayton for the past two years, this simply had to be done. Certainly a fun little ride, though it does sort of feel like it drags on a bit towards the end. We also did the slide in Maya Land before leaving to explore the rest of the park once again.

Spinning waterlilies <3

After a couple more rides on Anubis, we then headed over to Het Bos van Plop, an indoor boat ride. I really enjoyed it to be honest, the theming was lovely, the music was catchy and it was just a nice way to relax. Such a simple ride executed so well. We then did the train ride around the park before heading over to Wickieland again...

The Disk-o was still closed, but the car had been bought back to the station-area at least. Instead, we decided to the splash battle - Wickie The Battle. It was very nicely themed, a good length and got you to a good level of wet. Great water ride all in all!

With park close nearing, we dashed over to Supersplash for one more ride (majority vote over-ruled me unfortunately!). We then stayed in the park for a bit longer, looking around the entrance and such, before hitting the road. An hour-or-so drive later, we arrived at our French hotel, and after realising the hotel owners were out for the night and eventually being given our keys by other guests, we were finally in. A quick McDonald's and some French TV bought an end to our first - and fortunately longest - day!


Final Thoughts: I really enjoyed Plopsaland. It's a fab little park, with some nice little gems and great theming. The addition of a woodie next year is definitely music to my ears - one more family thrill coaster would complete the park's line up I think. It's certainly a park I want to go back to soon, and the proximity to me is a bonus!

 

[ThomVD]

Great report! Anubis is so great, glad you loved it. Also happy that you put Joris above Troy in your top 10 Looking forward to reading more.

 

[JoshC.]

Thanks!

I'd heard so many good things about Anubis, so I was glad it didn't disappoint me. Joris being above Troy was a weird one, as after my first day at Efteling, I had Troy higher up. But I realised after another day that Joris was more fun for me, and then it leap-frogged Troy.

And that's enough spoilers for now..

 

[ThomVD]

That's exactly how it went for me. I used to prefer Troy. But I've always said that Joris is a grower while Troy seems to get less impressive every time I ride it. Now after riding Joris over 100 times, I still enjoy it thoroughly. I'll never get sick of that coaster <3

 

[JoshC.]

Day 2 of the trip got off to a slightly bad start, with no where around our French hotel seemingly being open for us to buy breakfast (despite the internet and shop signs saying they would be open..). After much wandering around, we found a nice little bakery where I couldn't resist getting anything other than a croissant. After food was sorted, and a nice 30 minute car journey was had, we arrived at our second park , Bellewaerde.

Now, before I start, I should probably confess that I hadn't really heard of Bellewaerde at all until someone else suggested it be part of the trip in its early planning stages. I remember hearing about Huracan being built a couple of years ago (and its epic opening ceremony), but I didn't exactly think anything of it other than "Oh, that's an obscure park I've never heard of and probably won't visit any time soon". Fast-forward to now and I'm here, with said coaster right before my eyes.

We were directed to park by the Mexico entrance rather than the main entrance, which straight away took us to the likes of Huracan and some of the other big rides on park.

We joined the queue for Huracan, which was stated to be about 30 minutes, what with opening at 10:30. Given this was the park's headline ride, we decided to brave it expecting it to be longer later in the day. The entire queue is indoors and very nice, though slightly boring to wait in admittedly. This is saved by the epic station area, which is nicely themed, very atmospheric and has awesome lighting and sound effects.

The coaster starts off with a dark ride section, taking you pass a waterfall and many large temple-like statues. I think the ride is meant to have on board audio, but unfortunately it wasn't working for us. Whilst the theming here was something special, the lack of audio obviously meant something felt like it was missing. The lift hill then takes you outside briefly, giving a lovely view of part of the park, and the warehouse the ride is held in, before dropping you back inside. There's some cool light effects in there, and the layout is fun, but again, without any audio, it feels like a lot is missing from the attraction. The ride ended and left me saying "Is that it?". As an overall attraction, it's probably great when everything is working, but it just didn't do enough for me on the day. A real shame.

Entrance / outdoor section

Atmospheric station is atmospheric.

We then moved over the El Volador, a Topple Tower. Infamous rides really, and whilst I have wanted to try one out for ages, I was a bit unsure on whether the ride would be any good. The ride experience is weird, as it's not dull, not exciting, but it just happens. Very unremarkable in my opinion. I guess for me they're a lot like top spins in that they're fun rides to watch, but that's about it.

It was time to move onto another coaster, with Boomerang just around the corner. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it's a Vekoma Boomerang. It's the first one I've done, and I wasn't exactly looking forward to it after hearing many bad reviews. Alas, even if the long-ish queue gave me plenty of time to hear the rattlyness of the ride, I went in with an open mind. Admittedly, I didn't find it as rough as I was expecting, but it wasn't a comfortable ride. Coupled in with the fact that it's an intense ride mean I didn't enjoy that much.

To complete of Mexico, we watched a French showing of the park's new 4D film, Le Petite Prince (we could also have watched it in Dutch if we wanted, but chose against it). It's got a fair few special effects, and the fact we were told to keep our bags away from the seats should have been an indication of what to expect from the film. The seats move in all directions an awful, awful lot - perhaps overused just a bit. The film itself was alright though.

After about 2 hours in one area of the park, we finally moved along to the Far West to do River Splash, the park's log flume. It was a very warm day once again, so I was hoping for a reasonable splashing. Unfortunately, despite having a nice bit of theming and style to the ride, it was quite short, relatively dry and all in all, just a bit meh.

Final drop


After a spot of lunch and making priorities of what we should get done, we headed over to Jungle Mission. Bellewaerde is a theme park and zoo integrated into one another, and Jungle Mission is one of those rides that mixes theme park and zoo perfectly (sort of like what Zufari tries to do at Chessington). It's a boat ride that lets you see multiple animals exhibits, but also has a variety of special effects that make it feel like a fun boat ride. It was my favourite attraction of the day probably, with the effects being great, the theming being great, and decent views of the animals too.

The station area had loads of these cobwebs on the ceiling - I'm still not sure if they're theming or real...

Next up was Houdini, a Vekoma Madhouse. The pre-show was interesting with lots of good bits of theming, and I think we were able to be able to pick up the general gist of the story. The actual ride section was alright, but not to the standard of Hex, unsurprisingly. Still, a fun ride in its own right. This was followed by the Bengal Express - a train ride that takes you through lion and tiger enclosures. Again, another fun ride, but the heat meant that the train carriages were quiet warm, and the animals themselves were more lounging around staying cool.

With time ticking on, we went to the Canada area of the park, with a Shoot-the-Chute style ride, Niagara, on the cards. Now, I'm not someone who likes get drenched on water rides unless I'm in the right mood (for context, I haven't done Tidal Wave at Thorpe Park since 2009, despite countless visits since then). So I gave this one a miss, but did queue with the group. Somehow we were lucky and skipped a good 60 minutes of the 80 minute queue when a staff member from the station shouted for a group to come forward to fill up a row (why they got a group from near the end of queue instead of the front I have no clue, but I guess we weren't going to complain...). After seeing everyone after the ride, they didn't look that wet and I kind of wished I done the ride now, but ah well...

Looking pleasantly wet-ish.

A go on Screaming Eagle, a Shot n Drop tower, followed. Once again, it's a type of ride I'd never done before, but had wanted to try. It was okay, but I think I prefer ordinary drop towers to be honest - they provide a better, and more comfortable, experience really.

With 5pm approaching, we headed over the Gold Rush Stunt and Dive Show, new for this year. It was really good fun, with great special effects, a decent run time (25 minutes or so) and some good stunts of course. Being a stunt show meant it was very easy to follow as well, an added bonus for a park which is trying to cater for 2 different languages.

With the show over and the 6pm close looming, there was only really time for one more ride, and we opted to do Bengal Rapid River, unsurprisingly a rapids ride. It was a really fun ride, with it being quite 'rapidsy', a good level of wetness, with some nice bits of theming and scenery scattered around the course. Also slightly strange to see a rapids ride have its station on a slope (though, as we'd find out during the trip, not exactly uncommon!).

First time I'd seen a rapids ride with the 'wedge seat' boat design too!

Final Thoughts: Bellewaerde is an odd park in some ways. It's a mixed bag between having some quality attractions (Jungle Mission, Bengal Rapids), but then some attractions which feel like they have missed opportunities (Huracan, River Splash). Maybe on a different, slightly quieter, day, I'd feel different about the park. But even then, I still feel like the park needs a little bit more to feel complete. It's a park I'm not exactly desperate to go back to any time soon, but a park I'm glad I've done.  One final thing I want to mention is how friendly and generally great the staff were - also an added bonus that many spoke English, which was much appreciated after some of my failed attempts at speaking French!


We then set off to head to Brussels, which was meant to be a relatively nice journey. Unfortunately, roadworks on the motorway had other plans. A journey which should have taken us just over an hour ended up taking us 2 and a half hours, thanks to single file traffic and an accident. Joyous. Fortunately, when we arrived at the Meininger hotel in Brussels, we were greeted by great staff, a huge room and a Hard Rock Cafe a very short walk away!  Would highly recommend this hotel for anyone planning to go to Brussels.  There was also a fabulous atmosphere in the city centre with many celebrating the closure of roads happening in the area for an 8 month trial period (to help the atmosphere around that area or something; not too sure on the actual reason).  
 

A beautiful panoramic shot of the group in Brussels (I'm second on the left - I was smiling; promise!)

 

[ThomVD]

Weird to see how busy Bellewaerde can get. I've heard about others queuing for ages, but when a couple of us went on an April saturday, it was deserted. I agree about the park. It is lacking in the rides department, but I thought the overall park was lovely and had a pleasant atmosphere. Huracan is supposed to have onboard music and it's fab. It's a good family coaster, but nothing more. I also loved the jungle boat ride. Brussels however is an awful dump <//3

 

[JoshC.]

Yeah, we were also surprised by how busy it was - after reading TRs on here and just generally having nut hard much about it, I was expecting it to be quiet. We think we tackled the park in the wrong way, as the Mexico area looked quiet from about 2pm onwards. So a bit unlucky in that sense.

Huracan is a weird one, as I don't really want to be critical of it as we didn't get the full experience. But everyone else in the group seemed to enjoy it anyway, whilst I was quiet disappointed with the experience. It'd be nice to experience with the audio as I genuinely think I'd love it.

And Brussels isn't that bad, though I lost a bit of love for it the morning after with all the traffic we came across...

 

[peep]

Interesting report so far. The route you guys took around Plopsaland makes my head hurt. Why all the jumping about? Glad you loved Anubis and the dark ride!

Also I take it you don't cred count as you didn't mention riding the Tivoli at Bellewarde?

Huracan is a total waste of a theme. I'm against rides that should be all indoors going outside (unless done well like Crushs coaster). When you go back inside so much light is let in too which ruins the whole point of speeding around in the dark. I can imagine the music being off slightly dampening the experience but I don't think it'd make too much of a difference.

Still, it sounds like you enjoyed yourself which is the main thing. Look forward to reading more.

Sent from my C6903 using Tapatalk

 

[Martyn B]

It's nice to see a Bellewaerde report! It's an odd park really, and quite pricey for what they have IMO (32€ when I visited in 2012 - 6€ less than Parc Asterix at the time).

Couple of things you should know; the suspended coaster at Plopsa is closed as it's being removed to make way for the GCI next year. And the Boomerang at Bellewaerde is the original Boomerang! It's really not that rough considering it's the oldest.

 

[jj23w]

^ The managers said when we were there earlier this year, they would not be removed as they went to Vekoma to help them with a few things a year ago. The GCI I doubt is anywhere near them.

 

[Martyn B]

Well I don't know 100% but the plans I've seen show the GCI where they were, plus the park confirmed that they're no long suitable given the capacity, and that they would be relocated to a smaller Plopsa park. All makes sense really.

 

[JoshC.]

Interesting report so far. The route you guys took around Plopsaland makes my head hurt. Why all the jumping about? Glad you loved Anubis and the dark ride!

Also I take it you don't cred count as you didn't mention riding the Tivoli at Bellewarde?

Huracan is a total waste of a theme. I'm against rides that should be all indoors going outside (unless done well like Crushs coaster). When you go back inside so much light is let in too which ruins the whole point of speeding around in the dark. I can imagine the music being off slightly dampening the experience but I don't think it'd make too much of a difference.

Still, it sounds like you enjoyed yourself which is the main thing. Look forward to reading more.

Sent from my C6903 using Tapatalk

Yeah, the Plopsaland route was weird - looking back, I'm not sure why we did such an odd route. We did get a bit better at doing more sensible routes as the trip went on though!

Personally, I do cred count, but no one else in the group really does. Tivoli apparently had a 25 minute queue whenever we were around it, so we decided as a group to leave it and go back later if we had time. Unfortunately that time never came. Bit disappointed, and looking back I should have done it when everyone else did Niagara, but I guess a bit of live and learn.

Agree about the light being let in on Huracan too - in general, it just felt like having that one outdoors section went against the rest of the experince.

It's nice to see a Bellewaerde report! It's an odd park really, and quite pricey for what they have IMO (32€ when I visited in 2012 - 6€ less than Parc Asterix at the time).

Couple of things you should know; the suspended coaster at Plopsa is closed as it's being removed to make way for the GCI next year. And the Boomerang at Bellewaerde is the original Boomerang! It's really not that rough considering it's the oldest.

I'm guessing the price is also quiet high because of the zoo aspect? Those areas were always really popular whenever we passed through them; was kind of a shame we didn't have the time to appreciate them a bit more. Had no clue that it was the original Boomerang; just looking on RCDB now, I genuinely wouldn't have thought it was over 30 years old given the ride we had!

 

[Mysterious Sue]

Great report! Always nice to see a new opinion on Plopsa as it's a park I've been to a few times now. Great to see how they're coming along with the castle. I can't believe that so much spited you though - I don't think anything's been shut there any time that I've visited. Bad luck.

Bellewaerde is a lovely little park. Perhaps it doesn't have a great ride line-up but it's very atmospheric and green and I really enjoyed it. Trust me, Huracan's queue becomes gross in searing temperatures as it's basically a tin shed.

As for Brussels, the main square is pretty, but outside of that there's nothing, it's just very dull I think.

Really looking forward to hearing about the rest of the trip.

 

[JoshC.]

Thanks! The closed rides at Plopsa did feel like a bit of bad luck on the day, but I guess these things happen. I'd feel a bit more disappointed by it if I wasn't fussed about visiting the park again any time soon, but since I'm planning to go back next year, I don't really mind.

---

Anyways, here's Day 3...

After a fab night's sleep in our lovely hotel, it was Walibi Belgium day.  Out of all the park's we were visiting, Walibi Belgium was the park I was most 'meh' about visiting.  All the other parks had one or two attractions that I was really interested in trying out, and in some cases, were parks I wanted to try out for quite a while now.  Given how I'd only heard about Bellewaerde a few months ago as well, this perhaps shows how blasé my expectations were for the park.
 
We set off, giving ourselves what we thought was plenty of time to make the half hour drive to the park for 10am opening.  Unfortunately, traffic had made other plans for us.  Despite being informed the night before many times of loads of roads being closed, we didn't really think it would affect our journey too much.  We were very wrong.  With traffic being reminiscent of the M25 at times, we crawled through Brussels and had plenty of time to take in the lesser beautiful surroundings of the city (as well as slowly pass plenty of news crews..).  Anyways, we eventually made it out of Brussels and made some good time on getting to Walibi at about 11am.
 
Unsurprisingly, the park was relatively busy, and there seemed to be a lot of school trips going on.  With the major coasters at the front of the park, we decided to leave them till later and head over to the back of the park.  Our first stop was Challenge of Tutankhamon.  Unsurprisingly themed around Ancient Egypt, the ride only had a 5 minute wait, and so was a good first ride choice.  It was a fun ride, with some great theming.  It was nice that not all of the ride involved shooting, giving you a chance to appreciate the actual theme and story.  Not a huge fan of the guns and shooting system, but I assume it's the same for all Sally Corp rides?

Following rides on Octopus, a weird but fun spinning ride, and Salsa y Fietsa, the quirky-named Teacups, we moved onto the first coaster of the day. It had to be none other than La Coccinelle, the park's kiddie cred. It had no queue and the op didn't seem to mind 4 adults having a go on the ride (have read some reports where the ops get a bit funny about it). Nothing more than a +1 to me, but it was a bit of a blast from the past for others in the group...

Octopus

Some wandering round happened, before we opted to do Flashback, a log flume. It had quite a long queue, and most of it was in a horrid indoor cattlepen which was quite warm and sweaty. There was some bits of theming and it was out of the very warm sun though, so it could be worse I s'pose. The ride starts off in a great little tunnel section which all of us adored. It was a decent log flume too - three drops, including one backwards one, and a suitable level of wetness for me. Certainly my favourite of the 3 we had done so far.

I had a little nosey at construction for their coaster on the way to Flashback.

A sorta-view of the main drop of Flashback, featuring styled bins!

Next up was Le Palais du Genié. After reading about the ride the night before, we realised that this was another Vekoma madhouse. I was excited to try out another one! I felt like that the standard pre show for it was a bit long and laborious, but maybe it was because I put less effort into trying to follow along with the French sections (I think the talking was done in French and Dutch?). However, I really enjoyed the ride segment; everything just seemed to work well and it just had a nice little set up. But what really surprised with this was how, at the end of the ride, people started clapping. It was a loud clap of appreciation and utter joy. It started mostly from a group of school kids, but everyone else - who had seemed to enjoy the ride as well - started to join in shortly afterwards. I've never experienced something like that away from a large group of enthusiasts. So I think that shows that the ride is fairly decent. It's not a Hex-beater for me, but I still think it's very good.

I think we were contemplating lunch now, but the lure of blood was too big a temptation, so we headed over to Vampire, a Vekoma SLC. Once again, another first for me and, much like with the Vekoma Boomerang, I was a bit unsure what to expect after hearing many mixed reviews. We joined the 25 minute queue (which was quite a bit shorter than the other major coasters and nearby rapids at the time) and started moving along relatively quickly. Then, in a similar vain to what happened on Niagara at Bellewaerde, a staff member comes from the adjacent station building, calling for any 2s or 4s. We happened to be in the right place at the right time yet again, and managed to skip about 10-15 minutes of the queue and got on the next ride!

To put it simply, I wasn't a fan of the ride. It was quite uncomfortable, especially on the lower back, for the majority of the ride, which made it hard to enjoy. The thing is though, I think for a coaster of this size, the layout is actually alright, and if it was a bit more comfortable, I genuinely think I'd enjoy it a lot more. A shame really. Also, one other thing, a red and black colour scheme does not suit a ride called Vampire...

After a spot of lunch, we made our way over to the wild west themed area, and did another coaster - Calamity Mine. The layout and surroundings are quite fun; indeed, it's probably the park's most fun ride to look at in my opinion. The ride experience was alright, but, for some reason, I just didn't get that smile on my face that everyone else in the group got. It's especially odd as I normally love these sorts of family coasters. Ah well.

Wild West areas need more Calamity Jane references.

Next up was the small matter of Dalton Terror (at 240ft, this the tallest ride I've done!). It was good fun; it's nice to finally experience a drop tower with a long drop time. In terms of drop towers, I still prefer Detonator for the force of it, but this is still a great ride experience, and I wouldn't be surprised if this is one of the better ones for mixing imposing-ness, whilst not having a drop which feels 'too long'.

We moved onto the adjacent, but hidden away, 3D walkthrough, appropriately named Walibi's Secret. It had some nice little scenes (my favourite being a ramp which looked like a ladder), and it really is a neat little secret on park. Definitely something worth trying out if you ever visit!

It even featured some optical illusions!

After a long ride on Gold River Adventure, the park's boat ride around the lake, we then headed over to Psyké Underground. The queue for it is really weird, since you enter the building, go underneath the station, then go back outside, only to queue in a partially-enclosed area, before entering the building again. It was nice on a warm day to be able to queue outside but in the shade, but it just felt so random and odd!

I sort of liked the ride itself though. It's got a bit of a club/party atmosphere, in a similar fashion to X, and whilst the ride is starting, the staff get everyone the train to clap along to the music, which is a great touch. I was able to get front - the launch was fun and the vertical loop was a bit disorientating with the lights. But it just felt like it needed more. The ride itself feels very short (even shorter than you expect, even when you watch it whilst in the station), so I felt like it could do with more lights, louder music, maybe another effect or two, just to further distract you from the shortness of the ride. It's a fun little ride, but it just needs MORE.

On our Gold River Adventure, we encountered baby ducks and fountains.

Some of the odd-but-neat posters in the Psyké Underground queue line.

With time pressing on, we were a bit unfortunate in that biggest rides that we had left to do were still quite busy. We moved onto Radju River, the park's awesome-looking rapids. They were very rapidy, of a decent length and in general very fun. The operations on it were a bit weird, as they kept stopping and starting the station turntable, which was causing stacking of the boats a lot. Not sure if this is normal or not of course, but it would explain the long queue either way..

Now it was gone half 5 (where did all that time go?!), and the queue lines closed at 6. There were two casters left to do - Werewolf, the park's woodie, and Cobra, another Vekoma Boomerang. Cobra was closer and was saying a 25 minute queue, and the operations looked slower than at Bellewaerde. Not wanting to run the risk of missing out on the woodie for the sake of a another Boomerang, we headed over there instead...

Not today thanks.

So, we headed our way over to Loup-Garou / Weerwolf and joined the ugly cattlepen queue. Given that the only woodie I'd done so far was Antelope at Gulliver's Warrington, I was really looking forward to this, and it was a fitting way to try and end the day. We missed out on back row, as one train's back row was out of order, and there were loads of people waiting for it, but still got quite near the back. One thing I loved about the ride was how the bag drop point in the station had lids that would 'mysteriously' open and close - it was a neat little effect that I really appreciated.

Now I think with this being my first big woodie, I perhaps over-rated it (it slipped down my list of favourite coasters as the trip went on), but I really enjoyed it! Super comfortable seats, a decent layout with good length, and not too 'rough around the edges' meant it was just a great ride that I really enjoyed. Even looking back now, I just remember feeling a huge smile beam across my face.

After our ride, we begun to head to the exit, when we realised that the chairswing, Wave Swinger, was still operating and still letting people join the queue. We decided to go for a quick spin for the sake of it, and it was a nice way to end the day.

After a bit of shopping in the Wab Shop, we left and set ourselves on course for Cologne. A couple of hours later, and we arrived at our hostel. Much like with our hotel in France on Day 1, we were greeted by a locked door and no response when we knocked and rang the bell. With no telephone number to call, we seemed to be quite stuck. A little while later, one of the other people staying eventually came out for a cigarette and let us in. We knocked around the rooms and eventually found one unlocked with 4 made beds, so decided it was our's. We found another guest in the kitchen who was able to give us a telephone number for the owners, who told us that they thought we weren't coming because we didn't arrive in the check in time (even though online, check-in was until 11pm, and we arrived before 10). In the end, we were told the room we had found was indeed our room and we continued the night we no problems.

We wandered around the local area, and I grabbed a currywurst and chips for dinner - was very nice. We found a local supermarket and stocked up on some drinks (500ml bottles for 99cents; bargain!) and some snacks, before heading back to our hostel. It had been another long day with a lot of time spent in the car, but we knew a longer day was coming, with Phantasialand open 11 hours tomorrow, it was time for some sleep.

Final Walibi Thoughts: For a park that I was a bit meh about visiting, I was pleasantly surprised overall. It had some decent rides which were fun and there were some nice bits of theming scattered about. The park atmosphere was a bit lacking on the whole; something just felt a bit missing from the place. What that 'something' is though, I can't quite put my finger on!

 

[KristofWB]

Happy to hear you did enjoy your day in Walibi Belgium afterall! Too bad you didn't go a little bit later, because the park celebrated it's 40th birthday with lots of great extras, such as this -in my opinion- amazing late night spectacle!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=it2RgH-o-tw[/youtube]

 

[JoshC.]

Yeah, bit gutted we couldn't have timed it for the 40th anniversary; was following the build up on their Facebook and Twitter pages and it did look brilliant. Was surprised that there wasn't anything substantial on park mentioning it was their 40th year though - after all the buzz they were making on social media about it, I was expecting to see some more stuff to be honest!

 

[JoshC.]

[Apologises for the length delay between reports - I've had an interview on Wednesday to prepare for, as well as a few other bits come up!]

After a surprisingly nice sleep in the hostel of meh-service, and a slight accident where Adam reserved into a lamp post (don't worry, no damage done to us or the car!), we set off to Phantasialand! Collectively, it was probably the park we were looking forward to most. We arrived at the park for their 9am, and headed into the park.

Our first port of call was Maus au Chocolat, which opened at half 9. We joined the short queue of people outside and were able to get on the ride pretty much straight away. It almost felt like a shame to have my first go on the ride be a pretty much walk-on, as it meant I didn't take in the awesome queue line as much. Enthusiast problems ey? As for the ride itself, I adored it. I loved the theme, I loved the shooting system, I loved the soundtrack, I liked the mixture of screens and real theming on ride. It can see why people think it is bit too long / repetitive, but I didn't find it like that myself to be honest. For me, this was basically the perfect indoor attraction.

We moved onto the first cred of the day - Colorado Adventure. A ride which I'd heard decent things about, but I was a bit unsure about, possibly down to my underwhelmed thoughts Calamity Mine at Walibi the day before. Once again though, my preconceptions about the ride were wrong and, like many others, I do enjoy the ride. The lift hills are very slow though and really do kill the pacing of the ride, and that feeling isn't helped by the adjacent Chiapas and it's epic speedy hill. Still, a great family ride, and does live up to hype.

With it being a hot day, and with the 11 hour opening time suggesting it was going to be a busy day, we decided to stick to Mexico and ride Chiapas, which only had a 20 minute odd wait. I remember watching a POV of the ride when it first opened, and not really understanding what all the excitement was about, but I had heard brilliant reviews of ride, so went into it with mixed expectations. Fortunately, all I can really say about the ride is WOW. This must surely be the perfect water ride? Very good length, nice theming, a fantastic soundtrack, awesome backwards section, amazing final drop, and gets you a nice level of wet. Just sheer perfection.

Next up was the famous Talocan, the top spin well-known for its epic effects. Simply put, after experiencing Rameses Revenge and Ripsaw at Chessington and Towers a few times, I just felt like top spins were rides I didn't really rate, and were just spectator rides. But I went into this with an open mind. However, my thoughts aren't changed - whilst we were sat on the good side, and had a set of brilliant effects running during the ride, the actual ride itself is still a bit uncomfortable and just a bit meh all-in-all. Great spectator ride, average riding ride.

We left Mexico and headed over to the Fantasy area of the park. Before tackling the creds over here, we did a couple of the lesser rides in the area, starting off with Race for Atlantis. It was an awful simulator ride, with an awful pre-show (which I still can't work out if it was terrible on purpose), a juddery experience and a pretty meh film. We then headed over to Hollywood Tour, an indoor boat ride - unsurprisingly - themed around Hollywood films. It was a nice little experience in honesty, and I did enjoy it, but it certainly looked very old and tired, and in desperate need of some attention. It's hard to believe that a dark ride in this state is in the same park as Maus to be honest!

Temple of the Nighthawk followed. It was a walk-on, bar a couple of minutes wait following someone throwing up (hot weather + hot indoor building + roller coaster obviously wasn't a good idea for someone). Jack and I got front row. The coaster does two things in extreme - darkness and length. The ride is very dark, bar a few lights here and there, and way too long - three lift hills, with sections that feel like they do nothing. It's a very much a burden to ride it really, and it just feels boring. Another ride which needs a lot doing to it.

Random station theming is random.

Safe to say that the Fantasy area hadn't lived up to the bar set by the attractions earlier in the day. Felt like I was more in a Nightmare Land to be honest. The next attractions had a lot riding on them, as it was beginning to feel like a waste coming to this part of the park. Fortunately, the next attractions were Winjas. I knew a bit more about these coasters than I would have liked to as a first-time rider (I read up on them a few years back in my days of "Well this is a park I'll probably never get to"), but fortunately that didn't ruin the coasters as a whole. We did Force first, then did Fear straight afterwards. To avoid spoilers for anyone - I found Force had the better second half, whilst Fear had the better first half. I feel as if the second half of the coasters could have been better themed and had some more off-ride effects, but I do see why they've decided to keep those sections very dark. But all in all, two excellent coasters!

Was difficult getting any decent shots of anything indoors with my camera... ¬¬

We decided to polish off a couple of the smaller attractions in the area, including Baumberger Irrgarten, a nice little maze, and Wakobato - a splash battle type-ride which doesn't interact with any other boats, and has no (working?) effects. It was a pretty bad ride, even if it had some nice bits of theming.

The maze had bridges.

With lunchtime approaching, we decided to grab a bite to eat, and were able to catch the majority of the show that happens in the China Town area. Was a nice little thing to watch whilst munching on a bratwurst and chips. We took things easy for the next couple of attractions, doing Wellenflug, the chairswing with awesome water fountains, and Das verruckte Hotel Tartiff - an epic fun house. We had no clue what sort of attraction Hotel Tartiff was, so after experiencing the fab pre-show, I think all our faces lit up when we realised what it was! <3

With lunch settled down, the next stop was truly obvious to us - Black Mamba. I'd heard great things about Mamba, and with the similarities to Nemesis, I was very excited. With a very short queue and plenty of time left in the day, we opted to do front row for our first ride, knowing we'd have time for back row later on. I absolutely adore to the station; so nicely themed! The ride itself is good too and another coaster I really enjoyed. I feel as if the ride does too much too soon, leaving the end of the ride to feel a bit lacklustre. It's not a terrible thing of course, as the ride is still nicely paced and does a lot with what it's got, but I just think something else is needed at the end really. I did like the idea of how you enter the station building and are in darkness before returning to the station; it just seemed to work.

https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpf1/v/t1.0-9/11049592_10207183399846384_2087527089241077975_n.jpg?oh=799d6d4a8dacfed3555d8607f89de9aa&oe=5646E21F[img]
[img]https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfp1/v/t1.0-9/1908119_10207183404286495_4817687909515290558_n.jpg?oh=52c351e0bcb0287b589a1da548212d17&oe=5679D089
Station! (Unfortunately, having flash on has taken away the really awesome atmospheric lighting).

With only two major rides left, we headed over to the Mystery area for two rides I'd heard some good reviews about. First up was Mystery Castle, which was walk-on. The queue was fabulously themed and so so atmospheric. The loading for the ride was great, and I really liked how the control booth was in the middle of all the towers; it was another little thing which really worked, and makes the experience so much better. However, the ride experience was a bit underwhelming. Too short, no standout special effects. It even felt quite small; like it wasn't using the full height of the ride? It does seem we caught it on a day with short cycles, which is a real shame. One thing I did like about the ride itself was how at one point I genuinely couldn't tell if we were going up or down - we were quite obviously moving, but my sense of direction had be distorted enough for me to have no clue what was happening! Just a shame there couldn't have been more of that really.

We then moved next door to River Quest, the park's 'rapids' which had a 20 minute queue. Not really seeing any of the ride before, and fortunately avoiding POVs online, I was really intrigued by this. But, at the end of it, I was a bit disappointed. The ride itself lacks any real theme or theming, it isn't very rapids-y (a by-product of the space issue with the ride I guess) and left me absolutely drenched, especially from the waist down. Yes, I know it's a water ride and you're meant to get wet, but I just don't like get absolutely drenched! As I say, a bit of a disappointment really.

We still had quite a few hours left on park, so we went into China Town to do the attractions there. Their madhouse, Feng Ju Palace was very average, possibly the worst I've done given how bad the pre-show was. Then again, since this was the third day in a row of doing new madhouses, I think I was beginning to tire of them a bit! Their omnimover, Geister Rikscha, was also very average really, which was a bit of shame.

With everything of note now done, we essentially had the rest of day (I think 3-4 hours?) to do rerides and the some of the park's shows. We saw Pirates 4D which was a great blast from the past, as well as the on-park ice skating show, which was good fun. We re-rode all of the major attractions I think (though I gave a miss on River Quest, but in the end, the guys came off practically bone-dry; typical!). Back row on Mamba was a particular highlight! The day ended with us being the last group of Maus au Chocolat, with the queue line being shut as soon as we joined and the staff in the station area not actually knowing we were coming. The fact we rode it 3 times during the day and I didn't tire of it says to me that this will probably be one of my favourite rides for a long time to come!

With the longest on-park day over with, we had a nice hour long drive to Dusseldorf, where our next hotel lay in wait. It was a decent enough hotel; easy enough for me to crash out and sleep whilst the rest of the group discovered what highlights Dusseldorf had to offer (which, if I remember correctly, wasn't much!). The sleep was much welcomed too, with Toverland to come and the potential of riding Baron on in its opening day over at Efteling also possible!

Final Phantasialand Thoughts: All in all, I really enjoyed Phantasialand. It is obviously a top quality park with some truly fantastic attractions. The trouble I have is that there are quite a few attractions on park which are either very meh or are crying out for something to be done to them (or even just scrapped altogether). Whenever I think about the park, the first things which come to mind are the likes of Maus, Chiapas, Winjas and Mamba, but then the likes of Temple, the Mystery and China Town attractions and the poor filler rides in the Fantasy area just leave me with a bit of a disappointing after-thought. That being said, I still really did love the park, and genuinely can't wait to go back to it!

 

[CookieCoasters]

Very interesting report. I'm surprised you weren't "WOW-ed" by a few more of the rides (River Quest and Mystery Castle namely). It took me a few visits to get to like Mystery Castle to be fair, but it sounds you may have gotten the short cycle which is a shame.

Black Mamba doesn't even beat Nemesis Inferno for you though? Please tell?

 

[JoshC.]

Very interesting report. I'm surprised you weren't "WOW-ed" by a few more of the rides (River Quest and Mystery Castle namely). It took me a few visits to get to like Mystery Castle to be fair, but it sounds you may have gotten the short cycle which is a shame.

Black Mamba doesn't even beat Nemesis Inferno for you though? Please tell?

Yeah, I was quite surprised by the fact I wasn't wowed by Mystery Castle too to be honest. It's the sort of attraction I would have thought I'd rave about really. Though after speaking to a few people, it does indeed sound like we did get the short cycle. Fingers crossed I get the longer cycle next time I go!

I need to update my signature actually! At the time of writing it, I hadn't done Inferno for quite a while and probably had the rose-tinted glasses on when thinking about my Top 10. But after riding it last week, I think I'd over-rated it a bit and do rate Anubis and Mamba higher. Looking back at some of the thoughts I jotted down whilst in the car travelling to the hotel, I'm a bit surprised I put Inferno above it in the first place.

 

[ThomVD]

Great report again! Like Cookie I'm a bit surprised of your reaction of the Mystery rides and Talocan (I can see how one could find it uncomfortable though), and you don't seem to adore Colorado as much as I do (I rank it above Balder! It's such an airtime machine ), but I'm glad you liked the park. I agree that some filler rides are below the quality of the main stuff, but I like to forget about them, and when looking at the main rides it's hard to find parks with such consistent quality and a variety of great rides of all types.

Chiapas is indeed a near flawless water ride, only problem is the boats which are a tad uncomfortable. I agree that Black Mamba could use an inversion towards the end, but I still think the ride is AMAZING. The combination of incredibly amazing theming all around the ride and the high quality forceful coaster experience is just second to none!