No pics I'm afraid as I killed my phone on Troy. Troy!
Day 1 - Fright Nights of Awesome
Waking up to catch a Coach at 2am isn't fun on a normal day, but combine it with a full day and night at Walibi and you've a recipe for total exhaustion.
Fortunately I was lucky enough to be on the same flight as Jake, unfortunately I had to sit next to an actual Whale on the plane. Only for a few mins though as he realised he was suffocating me and swapped with a friend, who wasn't the size of a planet. Jake had spotted this Sumo in the airport and prayed that he didn't sit next to him, thanks Jake.
We arrived around 8, so I went to sort the hire car, nice and spacious, plenty of luggage room. This was fortunate as a couple of the group had been given rather small cars.
Eventually goons started trickling into the airport, Sue went to get her burdonous car offsite while we waited for the last few to arrive and we set off to Walibi Holland!
The first stop was
Xpress: Platform 13, Lofty was bouncing off the walls excited for the Queue, I had no idea why, until we went through it. It's fab, easily the best part of the ride. I'd quite happily go through that a few more times, and the cred was decent. Launch was fab, and the layout wasn't overly rattly or jerky, I think most of the group enjoyed the first ride of the trip. Everyone then got their free refill hot drinks, which were a godsend when running on minimal sleep.
Next up was
Speed of Sound which I heard was the best version of the boomerangs. I liked it, the OBA added a lot to the ride, the restraints were reasonably comfortable and the backwards section didn't seem to be overly forceful and bleh. Decent, but not something I'm overly bothered about re-riding.
Moving swiftly on, we moved round the park to
Drako. Standard +1 that was more memorable for the chat with Sue than the cred itself. The Clinic was here, and it offered some decent views of Lost Gravity.
Yay!
Lost Gravity is Fab! The Queue is decent, as mentioned, the fab vibrating escalator is tingly in all the right places, plenty of interaction and quirky theming. Fraser and I bagged back wing seats and the commentary went like this;
Lift hill: "Yay wing seats, this is gonna be fab"
Drop, speed hill, weird twist hill, floater hill: "Fraser I love it!"
Slow Turn, MCBR, Dive Loop, Zero G: "Fraser I hate it!"
Helix, Final weird looking hump: "Fraser I love it again!"
The first ride in the morning was really weird, the drop was incredible in the back left, EGF style twisted ejector, then a few really great mixed elements of ejector and floater before the slow turn. I LOVED the first half. The 2nd half was a bit bleh, slow and hangy, not what I like, but the final hump was amazing! Overall I liked it.
The night ride was even better, front right, and while the drop was nowhere near as fab, the rest of the ride was great. The Zero G had no hang and was lovely floater with a bit of force as the end and the Dive Loop was taken quicker. I'd like to see how the back left rides at night as it could potentially be a top 20 ride. Faaaaaab!
Next up was
Condor the first ever Vekoma SLC. There was a faff when one of the seats failed to release a poor soul. It was eventually fixed but the train was taken out of action. one train operations yay. Fortunately the wait was only around 30 mins. It's disgusting, like all SLCs, probably not the worst one, both Infusion and Mind Eraser stick out as being worse, but not by much. At least we got to enjoy everyone else's screams of pain while waiting for the 2nd group.
I think we did the rapids next
El Rio Grande, always fun with a group but this was one of the weaker rapids of the trip when compared with River Quest and the one at Efteling. Good boats though, I like the section ones as you can get a good shot of water to the face, shame the actual rapids weren't better.
Goliath loomed at the back of the park, and as a huge EGF fan, this was one of the creds I was most looking forward to. But it's not great, It's bad compared to EGF, but great compared to Rita, very much middle of the road. I'll ride it again when I go back but it's not the star of the park anymore. The Stengel is fab tho <3
However, after Nemesis_Guy was spited in the afternoon, we made it a personal mission to get him the cred in the evening. It took Jake(in an incomfortable position, there is a pic floating somewhere) and myself to close the seat belt but we did it. Getting Shaun the cred and seeing his happy face made up for the dissapointing ride
The Clinic group disappeared so the rest of us went for the final cred
Robin Hood. It was good fun, nothing special, but not disgusting. I got non wheel seat so it was reasonably smooth, but others on the wheels reported vile juddering and jerks. The restraints were a bit vile, as they kept tightening, but the ride itself was fine.
Lunch Break was called and it was getting close to 4pm (The Villa prebooked time) so I sauntered over to the Villa where I found Caffeine_Demon, but the rest (Ben, Maddie, Lofty, Serena) were nowhere to be seen. Turns out The Clinic had opening faff and they were running late. The Villa allowed us to come when everyone was ready, which was nice of them, so I went back to give good vibes to the Clinic group. As Serena said, she was soooooooooo close to Chickening out, but somehow she went in through the door.
I waited for them all to exit and Lofty's face when he got out was sheer joy. If Lofty loves a Haunted Attraction then you know it's good, and my heart sunk as I should've booked it myself
Ben and Maddie came out soon after and both agreed it was excellent, but Serena had bloused out near the end. Safe Word Serena was born from the Clinic, and became a thing for the rest of the day.
Anyhoo,
The Villa WAS INCREDIBLE! The batching guy kept character and wouldn't lose eye contact from me until we went in, very spooky.
Small groups are the best, I think the first scene was the Ring and I nearly died... I made Lofty go in front as we passed through amazing rooms. Saw was excellent, with multiple actors doing double scare techniques, especially when the pig came out at lofty and the guy on the floor sawing his leg reached at us as we jumped back from the pig. I also loved the Exorcist girl and the Scream scene with Drew Barrymore on the phone scaring us towards a side door and Mask Face came out! Freddy was also fab and Michael Myers.... so many amazing scenes and actors.
Then the finale with Chucky, Midget Chucky was unbelievable, we were screaming/laughing/crying as he chased us whistling, one of the major highlights of the day and trip. We waited to watch and hear Maddie and Serena get chased out and it was hilarious. So damn good.
Unfortunately I missed out on the Madhouse due the Maze issues, but caught up with the group and wandered around the park, some of the group did the S&S Shot Tower, but I needed another coffee and a rest after The Villa. The Scare Maze group caught up with us and we moved around the park going through the impressive Scare Zones.
Twisted Hellfire was the first one I remember going through, so much Fire!! Excellent costumes especially the bird beak guy, chasing the GP everywhere towards actors in cages, Heavy Metal music blaring, it was amazing.
We made our way through
Pirates Cove which wasn't quite as good as the previous one but did have a Pirate on a bungee jumping down from a tree and again, excellent costumes, with loads of mist and blue lighting.
The group joined the queue for Lost Gravity again, but at 50 mins, I couldn't hold my bladder for that long so found Jake outside and went into the
Firepit area. We hung around there for around 45 mins taking in the atmosphere and enjoying the actors chasing everyone with chainsaws. It was nice to have some downtime with no stress so Jake decided to have liquid dinner and polished off beer after beer
On the way back we went through the scare zones again and found the
Game Over section which resulted in everyone grabbing as many selfies with the characters as possible, seeing everyones face as Zombified Princess Peach, Luigi and Ash(from Pokemon) were sacheying past was priceless. The lighting package put on the rides for this area were excellent, espcially on the Enterprise and the Space Shot.
After the Goliath and Lost Gravity night rides we did
Jefferson Manor, which was located in the Firepit area, where a quite drunk Jake got called a fairy by the Hillbillies which welcome you to the area(apparently I was wearing Alien eyes...) Anyway, Jefferson Manor, which as everyone has noted, was very well themed, with what felt like a hundred actors scattered around. The groups were larger here so the scares weren't quite as good as the Villa, but there were a few notable ones including the girl under the floor.
After finding the last couple of scare zones, one was a generic
Zombie Area and the other weird
Things(which made more sense why the kids area had a load of industrial equipment plonked in it), I realised I was beginning to not function properly after a very long day so made our way to the Hotel and grabbed a late night Mcdonalds(Dutch kids in Mcd are VILE!).
Park Thoughts - The park isn't great during the day, apart from Lost Gravity, all the other creds are a bit bleh. Xpress was ok, but that's mainly because of the queue line, and Goliath was a let down considering. But the Halloween event was incredible, both mazes i did were excellent, with the Villa being one of my favourite ones to date. The scare zones are over the top, in a good way. It's great that they put so much effort into them, the amount of fire in Twisted Hellfire was ridiculous.
Still, great event as a group, and the meh-ness of the park was balanced by the great group collective throughout the day.
It really is night and day, but I don't think I'll be returning, unless it's for the Halloween event.
When I get my photos off my dead phone I'll post any I did take on here, might have some of Toverland too, and I'll be stealing everyone's off Facebook from PL and Efteling.
