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Easterdam - March 2016

P

peep

CF Legend
So Nic and I wanted to go somewhere over the Easter 4 day weekend and get some creds. Everywhere was looking expensive but then we realised that Walibi Holland was opening up Lost Gravity so we devised a plan to go over to the Netherlands and grab some creds.

Our journey started after work on Thursday 24th where we caught the ferry over to Calais. Due to me being an idiot we were delayed and ended up on a rather late ferry. We got to our hotel in Dunkirk around 2am, along with a mass of bikers - the man on reception had no idea what was happening.


Friday 25th

4 hours later and we were back on the road for 2 hours. Urgh, it was unpleasant. Still, we were greeted by a happy Thom at our first park of the weekend, Mini Mundi.



The lady on the counter said that when the weather behaved (it was slightly rainy) the cred would be open. Fair enough, it looked like it was due to clear up soon enough. We paid our 5 euros to get in and we were greeted by a very loud cat..



Cats <3

We popped outside and looked at what they had, there were no staff around and all the ride control panels were covered over. We hoped for the best and just went back inside to grab some food. I should explain that Mini Mundi is like a random indoor play thing for kids and then outside is a random miniature village and some Zamperla rides. It's actually quite nice for some local families. Here's a few pics of the outside area...





Oh a sole female staff member went around testing all the rides bar the cred btw and it was frustrating!





CRED!



There was a little train ride thing that went through a shed and there were random kids story scenes...







After some food we actually explored the miniature village while we waited for the cred to open. The staff member informed us she might not bother till about 12 to open, burdenous!


Casual train derailment



FIRE! OMG, clearly now the best miniature village in the World.


water cannon puts the fire out!









There was a bell tower and you could play a tune with the bells!



[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9g1w5rZevU[/youtube]

Fun!
We were highly amused by some little models having a bit of a drama. So there's like a posh dance scene going on and some guy who clearly wanted in on the dance is just continuously slapped round the face...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8vCC3YH2Ek[/youtube]

giphy.gif




Some of the peeps were clearly under the influence of alcohol - also, how massive is that dog!




Now you see them...


Now they're pigs


Why would anyone stay here?

Nic wanted to pose like some of these runners...




Conor was being dodgy...





*shrug*

Soon after out faffing about the cred opened! Hurrah. It was a quick +1 and done. We then hopped into the car and drove for like 2 hours until we got to Duinrell!

Due to my new Youtube channel I contacted the park and umm, we may have been carted about by staff in a little golf buggy thing to the creds. We were truly VIG (Very Important Goons). I nearly died when some little kids started singing
#They see me rollin'
#They hatin'

First up was Falcon...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HomeqAutS5Q[/youtube]

It rode pretty much the same as Rage in Southend. Rides well and is a fun little ride.

We then had a go on Dragonfly (video coming soon). I was looking forward to this one as I always thought it looked fun. It is! It's a very nice little family coaster with some great twists and interaction with the area. We then rode the Tivoli, Kikkerachtbaan, which was pretty standard.



Thom and I then rode the spinny Mad Mill ride. It was ridiculously spinny and the cycle just went on and on and on. It was ok, it just could have done with less of a cycle and there was an apparent lack of airtime. Theming was really nice though.





Opening in a few weeks is a new Gerst skyfly, it seems like the perfect addition for the park, sure it'll go down really well.





Due to the rain in the morning the bobsled thing wasn't open yet but there was a guy getting it ready as we headed over to it so we waited with a growing crowd for it to open. It was actually quite a good course but I had to slow down quite a lot towards the end due to a burdenous child. Sad face.





I loved all the really ecstatic bins around the park...



We came across the "shaduw huis", thinking it was a horror house or something. It actually turned out to be a room where a big light would go off leaving your shadow on the wall. It was amusing for 5 minutes.









We went for a bit of a wander around. There was a fairly new restaurant that had frogs and lillypads on the ceiling, it amused me.



It's also where I learnt hat Groot is an actual word in Dutch, making Guardians of the Galaxy even more amusing...



We then headed back over to the creds for another go on Dragonfly. The whole thrill park section is actually quite nice.








Love the trains



This time we rode in the back and it was great, just a really fun ride.



They had one of those big splash boat rides with a big cover over one of the boats. It had to be experienced...




[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQx8SBhj0Mk[/youtube]





We got some really nice ice cream...



The rides were now closed for the day so we just explored the areas we didn't get a chance to see earlier. There were loads of slides...



And there was a creepy clown...




Absolutely exhausted we then drove to our hotel for the night, dropping off Thom at his house on the way. Our hotel for the next two nights was amazing. We were like the only two under 60 stayed there though, it was a rather posh/old affair. Our room was massive and comfy.







We then went to a local restaurant before getting some sleep for the night.


Thanks for reading! Day two will be up at some point and features Walibi Holland!
 
peep said:
It was actually quite a good course but I had to slow down quite a lot towards the end due to a burdenous child. Sad face.

Click to expand...

It looks as if Nic had a similar problem on her ride. :D


As always, great report so far!
 
^ Haha, I just braked a bit too early and therefore came to a stop one meter before the end.

Awesome report. The golf buggy ride through Duinrell was the best thing ever. The miniature world was so fab too.
 
Saturday 26th

So the original plan was to do a small park and then enjoy Amsterdam on the Sat and Walibi on the Sunday. However weather reports were looking great for the Saturday and awful for the Sunday so we swapped things around and luckily it paid off! The journey to the park is a bit weird as it's just in the middle of nowhere (cool Tunnel at one point though!). I was slightly concerned there would be crazy crowds as Lost Gravity only opened two days prior to our visit but I didn't need to worry as crowds were light and most things were walk-on!






The hashtag is something like #Go fast

We arrived early so we grabbed a snack for breakfast and awaited for the automatic glass doors to randomly open at 10am. A couple of kids decided to run off to Lost Gravity (a few went towards Goliath) but most of those there were too tired to be running about :P The running turned out to be unnecessary anyway as Lost Gravity still had to do it's warm up cycles.




Staff getting in their morning ride





The thing looks crazy and the area is scattered with cool theming (will probably look cool once more plants have grown). There's an upside-down helicopter which had DJ in there all day! I loved that, sort of reminded me of when Thorpe had a DJ in that vehicle next to the launch.



We were quite near the front (probably 5th car of the day?) and going through the queueline once it was ready for guests was genuinely exciting. There was certainly a buzz amongst the crowd and the awesome theming distracted everyone enough to make us all go through at a fairly sensible pace.




Upside down trees <3


AHHHH, ridiculous paths!





I love how Walibi went "We see your Smiler and Oblivion 2 projection mapping and raise you with a mirror room with cool lighting"







EXCITEMENT!





Sooo... The ride. First of all, the seats are super comfy and feel awesome and open. The lift hill is crazy quick so before you know it everything has gone all Skyrush and you're thrust over the top and you twist down that insane first drop. It's not quite as good as the Skyrush moment of insanity but it's a close second. You then speed so quickly over that tiny hill and it's flippin' amazing. That unusual element is, well, unusual and even after 4 rides I'm still not sure how I feel about it. Then you have that great air time hill before going back up into that slow and ever so slightly banked turn. It's quite cool and if you're in the outer left seat it's kinda awesome.



Then you hit the brake of awful. WHAT WERE THEY THINKING!? It just ruins any momentum the ride has and makes the second half just slow and full of horrible, horrible, hangtime (URGH!). It doesn't completely ruin the second half but it darn well tries to. Luckily the course is varied and interesting enough to get over that. The zero-g element is cool and sometimes there's a cool water explosion effect as you invert. The twisty turn around would benefit from some of that stolen speed and then somehow it finds some and you go over the final hill and banked corner at a decent speed, there's some airtime and everything!

Overall I love it. It's a great solid ride that is extremely re-ridable. Imagine how I'd feel if that dirty brake was turned off! It should also be noted that the throughput was pretty decent despite the 8-seater cars. The staff operating the ride were on form, crazy efficient and happy. Maybe it was because it was the start of the season but we found the same everywhere we went in the park, their staff were the best I'd seen in a very long time!







So, I kinda love that exit path, you keep to the path without the need of a huge metal fence.


More upside down tree times!


Inside out umbrella! Best merch?

We decided to go round and do the rest of the park before re-rides. We kicked off with the Tivoli. This has had a retheme since my last visit (6 years ago!) so that was nice.







We then headed to the other side of the park where we stumbled into the SLC trap instead of getting to Goliath. Stupid RCT-inspired dead end! Hilariously as the train came into the station a girl came back without one of her shoes! Judging by the staff reactions a few minutes later, it must have luckily landed in a sensible place. The ride, as you'd expect and I'm sure you've heard, is utterly gross.









So, that above sign in the queue, yeah, that is a brilliant idea. I approve.

After our random SLC detour we were back on the right track and got straight on Goliath. I remember not being the greatest fan of this and I wasn't sure why. Now I do, apart from a decent first drop and the air time hills at the end it's just a bit dull. *ducks from the fans* The big turn around a tree and the big helix were just forceless and lame. Meh.







I didn't take a pic but the go-karts have had a new sponsor overlay from Red Bull and I think that works really well?

Anyway it was time for Robin Hood and I was dreading it. I remember loathing it so we sat somewhere towards the front in a middle-carriage seat. So, this wasn't rough or headache inducing which is my usual reason for hating woodies. Oh no, it was just dull! Somehow there were zero forces occurring. Like, we went down the first drop and, nothing, no air time or anything. Dare I say it but it could do with an RMC conversion, or just... something.







So somehow on my previous trip to this park I managed to not know about the mad house! (I'm a mad house nut). I was quite excited to see what happened in this one. I liked the theming and the video of the crazy Dutch Merlin. I also really liked the theming of the ride area, lots to look at. I feel like some of the effects weren't working but I appreciated the spinning wheel and needle kinda working in sequence with the ride, that was a nice touch. Overall not the best but certainly one of the better ones out there.




Also more fab queues!











We bumped into the Walibi character, yay! I know not everyone likes these characters but I think they're fab, we saw him several times throughout the day and every time we was giving high-fives and mingling with large groups etc, it was just cool to see a park character just naturally interact with the park guests.



Speed of Sound was next on our agenda and it had a queue! Annoying but it wasn't like we'd waited long for anything else yet. I love the music in this area, it's just lively and gives the whole area a nice up-beat atmosphere. I liked that they had given this one the new vest restraints but I did find they were really heavy/tight which was a little unpleasant by the end of the ride. I LOVED the on-ride audio though, there was a big smile on my face when it was like a DJ scratch and rewind sound before the reverse journey of the boomerang. I also bet this ride is incredible at night, all the lights would look great.



















Xpress: Platform 13 was closed due to a technical fault so we decided it was time for lunch. I remembered there being a great freshly cooked pasta place and it just happened to be where we were.




My fresh pasta Bolognese


Nic's fresh chicken noodles

The food was ok, the chef rushed our dishes a bit so not all the pasta/noodles were cooked enough. A shame on what is generally an extremely filling meal. Still better than most park restaurants.

To calm down after all that food we got on the big wheel. Great views of the park.















Just as we were lowering towards the platform I saw Xpress go! Nic was terrified of the queue so I had to go alone. The theming is amazing, lots of detail and stuff to look at. I love a lot of the effects, the audio is both unnerving and a superb tension builder. Even I was a bit scared of the queue! (not helped by basically doing it alone :P ) A shame that before the station is two corridors of black corrugated metal. A shame they didn't theme those two bits, especially as the air gate area is amazing. A bit cramped maybe but it looks great. Very creepy.











So the ride experience isn't that great. There's a reason Disney stuck theirs in massive warehouses. It starts off great and then gets a bit dull from about half way round. It's certainly no Premier launch coaster (what they called, spaghetti bowls?). The ending they've added is pretty cool, just a shame you sit on a brake run round the corner from the "scene" for ages and those at the front can see it while they wait. Still, there's fire and fire is always good (except on my face or house).

Nic now semi-reassured she won't have a crazy man jump out at her at random she hid behind me as we made our way through the queue. She was not happy about it. However she survived and got the cred!

We then headed back over to Lost Gravity for some more rides on that.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PatWb8onIow[/youtube]



























This was a cool t-shirt. You turned it inside out for the face




The legs in the air!

So we had two goes in quite quick succession. There's a cool bit of the queue which I didn't take photos of with some TVs showing like unusual versions of everyday TV. There was a random bit of BBC snooker with some subtle CG cleverness. It was just cool, something to watch while you wait and really added to the distorted World theme. Oh and there's a small documentary segment which explains how the asteroid didn't hit the Earth, the Earth hit the asteroid! Oh yeah and the ride was still super fun.

We decided to have a wander around the kids area before checking out their 4D film. I like the kids version of the Walibi characters...





The Splash battle broke down as we were passing, it was quite amusing to watch...



The 4D film was the same as the one we watched in Belgium. For some reason their theatre doesn't have seats, what is up with that? Their version is still better than the Belgium one though as it had fire! And as we all know, fire is always good (except my face and house).

After the show we felt like we had ridden enough (nothing bar Lost Gravity is really worth re-riding, unless Goliath is up your street). We were about to leave but I felt like one more ride on Lost Gravity.







So that middle upright blue box actually spurts a ridiculous ball of fire but we only saw it go off twice throughout the whole day.





We then did a spot of tat shopping and left for our journey back to the hotel.







I had a really good day. Lost Gravity is a brilliant addition to the park. I love how quirky and unique the theming is. Operations were excellent all day, seriously couldn't fault any of their staff members, they were fab. For such a big park though it is lacking in more side attractions (I know we didn't do the rapids or log flume but despite the sun it was still chilly).

Anyways we ended our day with a random Chinese buffet and then some sleep after watching some brilliant episodes of South Park on Comedy Central.


I'll write up the next part when I next get a chance. Thanks for reading!
 
A very enjoyable read!

Lost Gravity looks pretty fab, especially all the mental theming. It's a shame about the MCBR though!

I need to get to Walibi really - Lost Gravity and Goliath look brilliant. :D
 
Enjoyed the review on Lost Gravity. It's nice to read about something that I've kinda overlooked when it was under construction. It does indeed look quite good, especially for a ride that's so bizarre and unique. Walibi now looks like quite a desirable place to check out now that it has something really good other than Goliath.
 
Thanks everyone for the kind words. I shall now continue...


Sunday 27th

We started our day with a small drive out to Speelpark Oud Valkeveen for a simple +1. However the sat nat didn't like the address and we got a bit lost. We decided to track down a McDonalds for breakfast and free wifi (also being Easter Sunday we were aware 99% of places were closed). Oddly there was a big Easter party thing going on in the McDonalds, table cloths, actual plates with Big Macs on and even lit candles! Wtf? So that was a thing.

Finding a better address that the satnav agreed with we finally got to the park. We emailed ahead to ask if adults can enter without kids to ride the coaster(s), as a result and (I think) some confusion, we got free entry! We took a little tour around this random little family park. It was very pleasant and I could see why a family who passed us had annual passes as there was plenty for their little one to do. It's also just a nice location (although be warned that the roads there are pot hole central!).







After a while we clocked we were walking along the 'road' for the land train, it was random seeing that approach us as there were no proper paths so the whole scenario threw us off. There's a butterfly 'cred'...





A large pirate play thing...



A big apple sans apple...



Glorious...


The park also had this random spinny flat ride that hovered over water, unfortunately we didn't see it operate but it looked different...







*shrug*

Now we'd got our creds we decided to head out of the pleasant little park. Our next stop was Amsterdam. We dropped the car off at a park and ride (which once we got into a car park was super easy to use) and headed into the centre.



We didn't really have a plan for Amsterdam and we couldn't really have a night on the town due to having to switch our days around. We also didn't fancy an art gallery. So we started by walking aimlessly. The place was rammed and it was gross, so many obnoxious people everywhere (pretty sure all of them were tourists) - I'm used to London on a daily basis and I was struggling to deal with the people.





We found the Madame Tussauds which appears to be above a department store? There was also a palace in this plaza, more on that later.



I loved a lot of the architecture going on, some of the older buildings were proper wonky though.





We nearly did Anne Frank's house but the queue was grotesque. Instead we walked back a bit and did the Palace. It was something like 10 euros to get in. It was pleasant enough but the tour felt quite short and a lot of the rooms were very similar. I liked that it's something that is still used for Royal events and stuff.





The main hall was EPIC though...



















Some rooms are still used for meetings or slept in by important peeps...





So that was that. I think we went on a search for food next which somehow took forever because both of us were being indecisive. Have some more photos...






Such a random but amazing building





Nic found out about this glorified independent cinema called the eye and it had a funky building so we went to check it out. To get there we walked on to the free shuttle ferries. It was so random! Obviously bikes could get on which also meant that motorbikes and SMALL ELECTRIC VEHICLES were getting on. Literally waiting for the previous peeps to get off and there's a motorbike revving up behind me. WTF! The whole situation was so unusual.



Anyway we got over to the fab modern building. In the basement were some cool things showing the history of film. I knew most of what was shown but they had some cool bits and pieces.





We then got back on the ferry. Faffed around some more, got some crepes in a really touristy cafe and then got the tram back to the car. Wasn't really a fan of Amsterdam, mainly because the things it's famous for aren't things I like/want to do. While some buildings are cool I found the small paths and the sheer dense crowds annoying and frustrating.

Still, we got back to the car and made our way south for our next hotel. Somewhere in Tilburg was our lovely Bastion hotel. It was proper modern and posh and was really nice. We had a meal in the restaurant which was also nice.



And that was it for the day. It was rather tiring due to the travel at the end and all the walking about but we got a cred or two and had fun so yay.


Monday 28th

Our final day of the trip began with another fairly long car journey which took us to Boudewijn Seapark just outside of Bruge. The weather was fairly miserable looking but it was dry. Luckily our Plopsa annual passes got us cheaper entry to this place because it's a dump! The cred wasn't open but it was testing when we arrived so we took a ride on the old car ride.






You can't ride me... yet





The old car ride was pointless and lame with nothing but the testing cred and some bushes to look at. As our ride was coming to an end the cred opened so obviously we ran around, as did like everyone else in the park!









As we got off the sealion show had started so we watched that. You seen one you've pretty much seen all of them (bar the epic one in SeaWorld). We also bumped into their fab costume character..



Clearly bored he was going on all the rides and that. Annoyingly I didn't get a pic but he totally rode the cred! We randomly went on the Carousel.



We wanted to see their Dolphins but the show wasn't on for like another 30 minutes and we didn't feel like waiting around, so we didn't.



Instead it was already time to hop back into the car and drive down the coast to Plopsaland de Panne! Yay for Plopsa. We were greeted by their giant new perimeter fencing....



It looks fab and I can't wait to go back in the Summer to ride it!











After saying hello to a few characters we headed over to Forest of Plop.







I always enjoy this little dark ride. There's just so much to look at and lots of little details, fab. Opposite the ride in the farm area was the only queue we saw and that was for the big Easter thing going on. Kids upon entering the park got given a little bag and they went on an egg hunt. We were very jealous.

As Anubis was spiting for maintenance reasons (we found out a few days prior to the trip :( ) we headed into Vickieland. I went on the disko-coaster, still one of the best looking ones out there (has tough competition from the fab new one at Asterix!).



I hadn't visited since they finished off the area, the new buildings really complete it and the whole area benefits, love it.

















Upon exiting the area we could see the other new big change for the park, the Prinsessia re-theme of their tea cups ride. Yeah, a tea cups re-theme. It went from your traditional tea cup theme to this ridiculous castle (complete with posh restaurant) and the tea cups sitting in a glass dance hall type area. The theme is excessive and ridiculous and I love it. The ride may play the music-only version of this...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QznqRlNLgA[/youtube]

























This was just for the small tat shop

The ride is as you'd expect a tea cups ride to ride. I still can't get how over the top the theming is though.



We got a little ride in on the Tivoli before going over to Draak. Mainly for views of the new Heidi cred....







I love that there's finally going to be a decent viewing area for the log flume splash area. The park confirmed to me that the station is the only thing theming-wise that will be ready for the Summer. The rest of the area will be finished for the 2017 season.









So after pretty much touring the park and not doing much we decided to have some food. We finally opted to try out the new Prinsessia restaurant. It's a bit more up-market compared to the other offerings at the park and the quality is certainly a bit better (though we're fans of the pasta in the restaurant in Maya land).



The staff were very friendly and despite them not being open that long (it felt like this was still in a test phase) they were all very professional. We were given a random thing to start with which was a little wafer cone with a paste like stuff and pink peppers. It was odd.



For the starter I had a tomato soup (which in Belgium/Netherlands seems to come with meatballs). It was tasty.



The main was chicken, mushroom sauce, garlic mushrooms and potatoes (there were a few options on how you'd like them). It was tasty and quite filling.



Dessert I had a little chocolate mousse which was rather tasty and the perfect ending to a good meal.



Nic had pancakes and it should be noted that you can visit just for pancakes, it also looks like they might open the outdoor section at some point for pancakes.



The restaurant looks fantastic...













So the fireplace had a TV and some cushions so bored kids could go watch the show...





We thought that was a lovely touch. We were running out of things we wanted to do (usually our day is filled with at least some queues and countless re-rides on Anubis) so we headed into Mayaland for the spinny flower ride of awesomeness - good timing too as the heavens opened just as we headed inside.



I really like this ride, the water fountains really add a nice level of excitement to what is quite a standard family ride. We then caught the 'parade' which was literally most of the characters in random Plopsa themed cars. We then made for the car and headed to the ferry.

It was a nice day to end the trip and Plopsa is always a nice place to be and it was exciting to see all the new things they've added since our last visit.

Due to crazy strong winds our ferry was delayed and we got home a lot later than planned but it was all worth it for yet another great weekend away.


Thank you for reading! Until next time...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvKbwguONrs[/youtube]
 
Haha, amazing. Sounds like a pretty wacky adventure all round.

Glad it was fun though, Heidi looks pretty great - very reminiscent of Cú Chulainn in terms of it's location. Will be great to see it up and running.
 
Hoping to get to Plopsaland for the first time this summer, drove past last year but didn't have time to go in. How much time would you say is needed to do the whole park?

Thanks for the enjoyable report, and the best gif ever!
 
Ha glad the gif is going down well!

Plopsa depends on crowds really. I'd say a full day is probably required to sort of "do" the park, so all the creds plus some of the other rides like forest of Plop, the disko and the log flume. If you were to cred run it, would still take up a good portion of your day. Those batflyers can take a while to get due to their lame capacity.

Sent from my E6653 using Tapatalk
 
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