Ghosterforce 2018 - Order of The Fenix Trip Reports
- Thread starter Mushroom
- Start date
Mushroom
Goon of the Year
We were like that the entire ride haha. We knew where the camera was =)
Sent from my FRD-L09 using Tapatalk
nadroJ
CF Legend
Amy's video of Nathan riding the porn ponies at Slagharen got stolen by a meme account and now has 200k views XD
caffeine_demon
Strata Poster
SO - What is likely to be my final europe trip before brexit was pretty good - thanks to Serena for the organising, activity packs and other stuff! and thanks to Mush for the lift from Slagharent to Hellendoorn
day 1
Highlights:
Highlights:
Plan was to get to dippiedoe for 12 ish - nab the creds and get the train back home. Overslept, just missed the hourly bus, and tried to get a taxi from the station - Rung 3 numbers, and got an "unavailable" announcement, 4th number said "not today"- so I set off for the 40 minute walk, get about 10 minutes away and:
Yep - cycle/footbridge closed. worked out it would add another 20 minutes to my walk, so gave up and went back to the bus stop about 10 minutes away, and just missed the half hourly bus. Sorted out lunch, and made my way to brussels for Eurostar home.
day 1
Highlights:
- Goldrush
- Both parks being charming
- Rave in a maze
- good quality scare zones and mazes
- Nice atmnosphere for the halloween stuff.
- 2 of the 3 upcharge mazes where decent, best maze was one of the free ones!
- Meet up lateness (Ok - I was late too for slagharen, but on time at hellendoorn)
- Timed maze tickets faff
- Dark forest being rubbish
- Not enough time to get alll the scare zones
- 1 cred being closed
- Missing out on both the open creds at hellendoorn
- Taxi faff meaning I missed the train back - Thanks to Jayjay for letting me use the spare bed in his hotel room!
Highlights:
- The park improving each time I've visited - Easily a top 10 park now!
- Troy being walk on before official meet up
- Troy being on Blistering form
- spook a cf-er (who won? abnd what was the prize?)
- Faffle
- Getting a proper time on blitz bahn this time
- Fenix left side being lovely and floaty
- Fenix right side being pretty intense
- Fab halloween atmosphere and good scare zones
- Spotting a "chainsaw" without it's saw attachment (Ie a leafblower)
- Screaming swamp was quite good
- Not having enough time for all the scare zones and mazes (and feeling exhausted at about 9!)
- 2 of the 3 mazes I did do (villa phobia and labyrinth) being a bit rubbishy
Plan was to get to dippiedoe for 12 ish - nab the creds and get the train back home. Overslept, just missed the hourly bus, and tried to get a taxi from the station - Rung 3 numbers, and got an "unavailable" announcement, 4th number said "not today"- so I set off for the 40 minute walk, get about 10 minutes away and:
Yep - cycle/footbridge closed. worked out it would add another 20 minutes to my walk, so gave up and went back to the bus stop about 10 minutes away, and just missed the half hourly bus. Sorted out lunch, and made my way to brussels for Eurostar home.
Firstly, HOW AMAZING IS TOVERLANDS HALLOWEEN EVENT!
I keep finding myself breaking into a massive grin just thinking about that hazy, beautifully lit park at night. DesTroy is possibly my favourite scare zone ever? The fire! The actors! The costumes! The music! The blood red lighting! The insanely good night ride on Troy! Wow. Toverland have officially ruined Halloween for all other theme parks. What an atmosphere.
I loved how the park made use of what they already have - turning the waterfall / caves area into a creatures of the deep-sea scare zone. Turning Troy into a flaming historic battleground of the undead. In other parks - scare zones feel kind of...plonked over an area that doesn't coincide with the theme? (See: "Things" scare zone shunted into the kiddie area at Walibi Holland) But Toverlands event feels so cohesive. They don't just stick black material and zombies in anywhere, they transform the pre-existing themes of the park into Halloween versions of themselves. It's EXCELLENT.
On the subject of Toverland, this place feels like a whole new park. It suddenly feels sprawling - full of areas to explore. The new entrance is beautiful, very Islands of Adventure-esque. Fenix dominates the skyline in that same shade of blue as my old school uniform. The queueline for Fenix is stunning. Again with the IOA comparisons, it gave me slight Duelling Dragons vibes. So well-themed.
The coaster itself is alright. I'm not the biggest fan of WingRiders, but you actually get airtime on the hill on this one. Unfortunately I only got to ride it once, as turns out: everyone is aware of how amazing Toverland Halloween is. And they've all descended on the park at once. Very, very long queues for everything. I've never really had to queue at Toverland before so it was quite novel if a bit frustrating too. I'm way too spoiled with visiting parks when they are dead.
Shout out to the lovely new boat ride for creating a magic that rivals Efteling. It makes me wish for Toverland to build a full Dark Ride.
The only thing that wasn't quite up to standard at Toverland Halloween were the mazes. When I go back, I won't bother with them again. Don't get me wrong, they weren't awful - it's just that it was far more rewarding to soak up the atmosphere in the scare zones and on night rides, then have a man with a leaf blower come at me.
The Discover Your Fear finale was one of the best closing shows I've ever seen. It was a battle between good and evil, depicted with giant flamethrowers and fireworks. Which is exactly as amazing as it sounds. I loved it.
Moving on, not in order.
Slagharen was cute. GoldRush surprised me with how much it packed a punch with its compact layout. A very fun coaster, super re-rideable. Indoor, Wild-West themed rapids were nice. But the best thing about this park was THE DOGGOS!
So. many. beautiful. dogs. This prompted me to add a new category into the GF 2018 Paranormal Activity Pack: Dog of the Day! At Slagharen, Dog of the Day was awarded to a lovely Bassett Hound.
Hellendoorn Screams didn't feel like any other theme park Halloween event. It was weird and unique - doing things I haven't seen at parks before. Turning a boat ride into a scary experience with actors was fab! Building a free maze that was essentially a circle pit with strobe and actors was INSANE. Taking groups on a long walk into the forest outside of the park with actors in the trees was weird!
Death Lab and the free church maze were super enjoyable. There was a circus-themed maze that featured a sit-down cinema section, with actors making surround-sound creepy noises as you watched Lights Out. I really wasn't expecting that and found it quite unnerving. Again, it was something a bit different that went above my expectations.
Walibi Holland. Oh, Walibi. You were my favourite scare event ever... before Toverland outshone you in most ways. Got to the park at 1pm on Sunday. (It's a very easy journey via public transport btw) 2 hour queues for everything. Even the flat rides. Even the log flume. You had to shuffle slowly along the walkways as they were all so overcrowded. As much as I'm not used to this level of busyness, I was determined not to let it dampen my day.
Single-ridered Lost Gravity. Man, this thing has got ROUGH. Out of the Top 10 you go, LG. Such a shame, because the elements are still so quirky and cool.
Hit up the mazes because we had a fast pass for them. Now, here is where Walibi Fright Night really takes the crown. The mazes were absolutely TERRIFYING this year. I get scared quite easily, but Rob never gets phased by scare mazes - but we left The Villa and his heart was pounding. It was so intense! I've even done this maze before but I was not prepared for that assault on my senses!
And ALL of the mazes were like it! Even PsychoShock and Haunted Holidays - which I wasn't impressed with 2 years ago. Everything just seemed extra-ramped up in the mazes this year. It was brilliant / gave me nightmares.
The trouble was, after we did all the mazes, there was this dead spot where - we didn't want to join a 2 hour queue for a ride, but it wasn't dark enough for scare zones. So we just kind of...wandered around aimlessly?
I have always been a huge fan of the Walibi Scare Zones, but compared to Toverland - they didn't match up. Plus, it was so crowded, you basically had to shuffle through each zone and could barely see anything. A real shame. The best zone was by far Twisted Hellfire, which featured a giant Satan dude on a skullthrone.
Had a fab night ride on Goliath, which was Rob's 100th cred. I'm so proud! I normally don't care for Goliath but it was running so well tonight - buckets of airtime and came into the final brakes so fast!
The new Eddie The Clown show was grotesque and tasteless - everything you would expect from Eddie! I love how he is treated like a rockstar over there!
And that concludes a rather stressful trip.
THINGS I HAVE LEARNED FROM DOING GF 2018:
- Do it earlier in October to avoid INSANE CROWDS
- Do only one park per day
- Earlier meet up times
- 'Spook a CFer' is definitely a THING!
- Attendees to confirm attendance a month before the Live so I have a solid group number. When I was emailing the parks for GF, we only had 12 attendees - so not enough for Group Entry or ERT. But we ended up with 19 people - which would have been enough. It's so much easier to arrange perks for the group if we have the final number confirmed nice and early. And perks make these trips extra special.
Thanks to everyone for coming! Hope you all had a spooktacular time.
I keep finding myself breaking into a massive grin just thinking about that hazy, beautifully lit park at night. DesTroy is possibly my favourite scare zone ever? The fire! The actors! The costumes! The music! The blood red lighting! The insanely good night ride on Troy! Wow. Toverland have officially ruined Halloween for all other theme parks. What an atmosphere.
I loved how the park made use of what they already have - turning the waterfall / caves area into a creatures of the deep-sea scare zone. Turning Troy into a flaming historic battleground of the undead. In other parks - scare zones feel kind of...plonked over an area that doesn't coincide with the theme? (See: "Things" scare zone shunted into the kiddie area at Walibi Holland) But Toverlands event feels so cohesive. They don't just stick black material and zombies in anywhere, they transform the pre-existing themes of the park into Halloween versions of themselves. It's EXCELLENT.
On the subject of Toverland, this place feels like a whole new park. It suddenly feels sprawling - full of areas to explore. The new entrance is beautiful, very Islands of Adventure-esque. Fenix dominates the skyline in that same shade of blue as my old school uniform. The queueline for Fenix is stunning. Again with the IOA comparisons, it gave me slight Duelling Dragons vibes. So well-themed.
The coaster itself is alright. I'm not the biggest fan of WingRiders, but you actually get airtime on the hill on this one. Unfortunately I only got to ride it once, as turns out: everyone is aware of how amazing Toverland Halloween is. And they've all descended on the park at once. Very, very long queues for everything. I've never really had to queue at Toverland before so it was quite novel if a bit frustrating too. I'm way too spoiled with visiting parks when they are dead.
Shout out to the lovely new boat ride for creating a magic that rivals Efteling. It makes me wish for Toverland to build a full Dark Ride.
The only thing that wasn't quite up to standard at Toverland Halloween were the mazes. When I go back, I won't bother with them again. Don't get me wrong, they weren't awful - it's just that it was far more rewarding to soak up the atmosphere in the scare zones and on night rides, then have a man with a leaf blower come at me.
The Discover Your Fear finale was one of the best closing shows I've ever seen. It was a battle between good and evil, depicted with giant flamethrowers and fireworks. Which is exactly as amazing as it sounds. I loved it.
Moving on, not in order.
Slagharen was cute. GoldRush surprised me with how much it packed a punch with its compact layout. A very fun coaster, super re-rideable. Indoor, Wild-West themed rapids were nice. But the best thing about this park was THE DOGGOS!
So. many. beautiful. dogs. This prompted me to add a new category into the GF 2018 Paranormal Activity Pack: Dog of the Day! At Slagharen, Dog of the Day was awarded to a lovely Bassett Hound.
Hellendoorn Screams didn't feel like any other theme park Halloween event. It was weird and unique - doing things I haven't seen at parks before. Turning a boat ride into a scary experience with actors was fab! Building a free maze that was essentially a circle pit with strobe and actors was INSANE. Taking groups on a long walk into the forest outside of the park with actors in the trees was weird!
Death Lab and the free church maze were super enjoyable. There was a circus-themed maze that featured a sit-down cinema section, with actors making surround-sound creepy noises as you watched Lights Out. I really wasn't expecting that and found it quite unnerving. Again, it was something a bit different that went above my expectations.
Walibi Holland. Oh, Walibi. You were my favourite scare event ever... before Toverland outshone you in most ways. Got to the park at 1pm on Sunday. (It's a very easy journey via public transport btw) 2 hour queues for everything. Even the flat rides. Even the log flume. You had to shuffle slowly along the walkways as they were all so overcrowded. As much as I'm not used to this level of busyness, I was determined not to let it dampen my day.
Single-ridered Lost Gravity. Man, this thing has got ROUGH. Out of the Top 10 you go, LG. Such a shame, because the elements are still so quirky and cool.
Hit up the mazes because we had a fast pass for them. Now, here is where Walibi Fright Night really takes the crown. The mazes were absolutely TERRIFYING this year. I get scared quite easily, but Rob never gets phased by scare mazes - but we left The Villa and his heart was pounding. It was so intense! I've even done this maze before but I was not prepared for that assault on my senses!
And ALL of the mazes were like it! Even PsychoShock and Haunted Holidays - which I wasn't impressed with 2 years ago. Everything just seemed extra-ramped up in the mazes this year. It was brilliant / gave me nightmares.
The trouble was, after we did all the mazes, there was this dead spot where - we didn't want to join a 2 hour queue for a ride, but it wasn't dark enough for scare zones. So we just kind of...wandered around aimlessly?
I have always been a huge fan of the Walibi Scare Zones, but compared to Toverland - they didn't match up. Plus, it was so crowded, you basically had to shuffle through each zone and could barely see anything. A real shame. The best zone was by far Twisted Hellfire, which featured a giant Satan dude on a skullthrone.
Had a fab night ride on Goliath, which was Rob's 100th cred. I'm so proud! I normally don't care for Goliath but it was running so well tonight - buckets of airtime and came into the final brakes so fast!
The new Eddie The Clown show was grotesque and tasteless - everything you would expect from Eddie! I love how he is treated like a rockstar over there!
And that concludes a rather stressful trip.
THINGS I HAVE LEARNED FROM DOING GF 2018:
- Do it earlier in October to avoid INSANE CROWDS
- Do only one park per day
- Earlier meet up times
- 'Spook a CFer' is definitely a THING!
- Attendees to confirm attendance a month before the Live so I have a solid group number. When I was emailing the parks for GF, we only had 12 attendees - so not enough for Group Entry or ERT. But we ended up with 19 people - which would have been enough. It's so much easier to arrange perks for the group if we have the final number confirmed nice and early. And perks make these trips extra special.
Thanks to everyone for coming! Hope you all had a spooktacular time.
SilverArrow
Certified Ride Geek
Slagharen
After the ~4:30am get up and taxi to the airport I boarded my flight (after an initial stress that it was delayed by an hour and a half but this was resolved) and met Sue at the airport (straight from Africa!). Once we had sorted ourselves out we found the guys in the hire car in what must be one of the most treacherous airport pick up zones ever. Daviddoc and I had been to Slagharen before so knew that it wouldn’t take all day to get around the park which was good as Sue and I had to arrive that morning.
Slagharen
Ok so I did a trip report for our first visit earlier in the year that details all the quirky things I love about this park. If you want more info go check it out. It’s always a bit different visiting as a big group and I enjoyed my second visit as well.
Notable moments from the visit:
-Convincing people to do the Schwarz enterprise because it’s “more intense than the huss ones”. I think everyone agreed after! This ride is also so pretty, love a bit of steampunk!
-Mass snack experience. I always opt for the cheesy ones as the meat ones look kind of freaky and cheese never disappoints!
-Enjoying goldrush again, I like how they have the old ride metal signs in the station although it’s kind of bittersweet, as I said before though Goldrush is a great replacement and fits into the park so well (and you can still ride the Schwarz cred in Cyprus (need that cred!) so it’s a win win really)
-A fly went in my eye one time so I had to enlist daviddoc’s medical skills haha. Even in death it was very stubborn.
-Treating everyone to the indoor rapids that isn’t rapid but is something a bit different
-Recommending the huss condor to Chainedbanana and then regretting riding it again (like I always do with star flyers) because I felt like I was going to fall out.
-Getting airtime on the (Schwarz) octopus. These are always fun.
-Actually doing that weird looking old-school carousel which was amusing
-Making people do the rare moon swing and it also being amusing
Then our car went for awesome all you can eat sushi because why not. It was very tasty.
Hellendoorn
I had no idea what to really expect with this park considering the park as it looked pretty small and they appeared to only offer Halloween nights twice a year. Surely they couldn’t put much effort in for just two nights??
The park exceeded my expectations with a host of quirky spooky things. The highlight for me was definitely the spooky boat ride, which was an ingenious idea. We enjoyed it so much we did it twice although the second run through wasn’t as good as the first. Highlights include the man-bush, Sue and I screaming at the plastic crocodile, the cobweb man and the leaf blower. We commented on how well the slowness of the boats really built up the suspense. Unlike in scare mazes you can’t just rush through this if you’re scared, you have to sit and wait for things to come past you. It worked really well.
The mazes varied a lot, the best one was probably the church one which I went through with a lot of the girls which was fun. There were some good scenes and characters in it. Shoutout must go to the hotel one with the lift. The lift bit was so good as we all got in and were like “erm what now” and then someone popped up at the window before it went dark. We had no idea whether they were going to turn up inside the lift or what was going to happen next! Chainedbanana also found some nice maintenance cupboards in this walkthrough!
The ring was another surprise, literally just a rave tent with a strobe and some actors. It was hilarious seeing everyone dance ironically then realising that that was literally all the maze was before going round for another go!
The forest one was just really dark and a bit of a trip hazard but it was something that could be built on as it was an interesting idea. The playground one had some cool costumes but was a bit random and not that scary. I can’t remember whether we did any others, but overall they were quite an interesting mix. We didn’t get round them all (e.g. we missed the circus one) but we did quite a lot of them.
Not much to say about the creds, the rat one had a maze in the queueline which freaked a lot of people out, some teenage girls were having quite the freakout over this so it obviously worked. Kind of like the raptor attack queueline. The cred was decent for what it was and went around twice. The shooting dark ride was good, it had some interesting props but it was hard to focus on these when you were trying to shoot at things.
Toverland
We had decided to bail on Billybird to get to Tover at a decent time and ended up being early for the meet up. This was my first time to tover (slag was the only one I’d done before on the trip) so there was a lot to do and it got busy quite quickly.
Things to note
-The new water ride is cute and chill but takes a long time to get around, cool idea how it goes inside under Fenix though
-Spinning cred was one of the best spinners I’ve done, really good fun
-Troy was as ridiculous as people had said, definitely lived up to the hype! Really aggressive and relentless!
-Fenix was chill, only did it one and got some nice airtime on the hump but the helix wasn’t as intense as some had been making it out to be
-Bobsled thing, this was really fun and I got a good time on it but my goodness did the queue go on and on! It didn’t help that it broke down but this was really quite a queue and a half with the terrible throughput!
-I was a burden and insisted on getting the booster bike cred which involved horrible cattlepen queueing but the end ride in the dark was pretty cool in the end. They had even themed it with fire! Everyone came off glad that they had done it at night so I didn’t feel as bad!
-Everyone kept saying that they weren’t used to queuing this much so it was probably a bad day to go for the first time but luckily I got all the creds
-The scarezones that I did see (mostly the circus one and the destroy ones) were really cool. Loved the minotaur guy that was going round the destroy area. He was giving so many people really good frights. Never seen the dragging spade trick before but I watched a video the other day with it in so obviously it’s not just a tover thing, that was quite unnerving and worked well with crowds.
-Fog. So much fog. I noted at the top of the troy lift hill on my night ride the ridiculous amount of fog that had settled around the park. It was like a 2 miles radius and looked amazing!!
-Our idea of coming back to the sit down restaurant for dinner soon evaporated and we found it a struggle to find anywhere selling anything edible with a queue less than half an hour. We finally got nachos and hot dogs at the beer stand, so also got some beer so it wasn’t all bad!
-My one downside to the park (apart from the crowds) was the horrible sensory maze that we did that was the only maze we actually did. I ended up having a bit of an argument with the guy behind me because he kept squashing into me and it made me feel really uncomfortable. On top of that it was so long and boring. So I would not do that again.
-Destroy night ride was insane, so much fire and light and crazy woodieness
-Wish we had got over to Fenix in the night for a night ride and to see more of the scarezones but there was just too much to do and so many people there
The entrance area, as Serena said was very islands of adventure and I kept remarking on this during the day. That’s not a bad thing though, it’s a nice theme. Now that I’ve been I can add it to my list of places that I wouldn’t mind revisiting so that’s nice. Even as a first time visitor you can see how the park has grown and how the new area(s) really complete the park and give it a larger theme park feel.
The next day
We looked at the map and decided that we could recoup our cred losses and snap up the Billybird and Dippiedoe creds before I was dropped off at the airport and the others went on to Walibi. Billybird was really cute and had a very pretty location by the side of a lake. The cred was pretty unique and even had sort of airtime in it!
We also decided to try out some of the play equipment at the park because we’re really just a bunch of big kids. Highlights were the musical mechanical merry-go-round, noisy swings that made motorbike noises and the giant pillows.
A casual coffee to go...
Dippiedoe wasn’t quite as pleasant and chill but was still nice enough and a decent +2 stop. We then got some lunch (after finding one place closed) before I got my flight back to the UK.
Overall I had a great time with everyone, as always and got a +10 as well! Yay
After the ~4:30am get up and taxi to the airport I boarded my flight (after an initial stress that it was delayed by an hour and a half but this was resolved) and met Sue at the airport (straight from Africa!). Once we had sorted ourselves out we found the guys in the hire car in what must be one of the most treacherous airport pick up zones ever. Daviddoc and I had been to Slagharen before so knew that it wouldn’t take all day to get around the park which was good as Sue and I had to arrive that morning.
Slagharen
Ok so I did a trip report for our first visit earlier in the year that details all the quirky things I love about this park. If you want more info go check it out. It’s always a bit different visiting as a big group and I enjoyed my second visit as well.
Notable moments from the visit:
-Convincing people to do the Schwarz enterprise because it’s “more intense than the huss ones”. I think everyone agreed after! This ride is also so pretty, love a bit of steampunk!
-Mass snack experience. I always opt for the cheesy ones as the meat ones look kind of freaky and cheese never disappoints!
-Enjoying goldrush again, I like how they have the old ride metal signs in the station although it’s kind of bittersweet, as I said before though Goldrush is a great replacement and fits into the park so well (and you can still ride the Schwarz cred in Cyprus (need that cred!) so it’s a win win really)
-A fly went in my eye one time so I had to enlist daviddoc’s medical skills haha. Even in death it was very stubborn.
-Treating everyone to the indoor rapids that isn’t rapid but is something a bit different
-Recommending the huss condor to Chainedbanana and then regretting riding it again (like I always do with star flyers) because I felt like I was going to fall out.
-Getting airtime on the (Schwarz) octopus. These are always fun.
-Actually doing that weird looking old-school carousel which was amusing
-Making people do the rare moon swing and it also being amusing
Then our car went for awesome all you can eat sushi because why not. It was very tasty.
Hellendoorn
I had no idea what to really expect with this park considering the park as it looked pretty small and they appeared to only offer Halloween nights twice a year. Surely they couldn’t put much effort in for just two nights??
The park exceeded my expectations with a host of quirky spooky things. The highlight for me was definitely the spooky boat ride, which was an ingenious idea. We enjoyed it so much we did it twice although the second run through wasn’t as good as the first. Highlights include the man-bush, Sue and I screaming at the plastic crocodile, the cobweb man and the leaf blower. We commented on how well the slowness of the boats really built up the suspense. Unlike in scare mazes you can’t just rush through this if you’re scared, you have to sit and wait for things to come past you. It worked really well.
The mazes varied a lot, the best one was probably the church one which I went through with a lot of the girls which was fun. There were some good scenes and characters in it. Shoutout must go to the hotel one with the lift. The lift bit was so good as we all got in and were like “erm what now” and then someone popped up at the window before it went dark. We had no idea whether they were going to turn up inside the lift or what was going to happen next! Chainedbanana also found some nice maintenance cupboards in this walkthrough!
The ring was another surprise, literally just a rave tent with a strobe and some actors. It was hilarious seeing everyone dance ironically then realising that that was literally all the maze was before going round for another go!
The forest one was just really dark and a bit of a trip hazard but it was something that could be built on as it was an interesting idea. The playground one had some cool costumes but was a bit random and not that scary. I can’t remember whether we did any others, but overall they were quite an interesting mix. We didn’t get round them all (e.g. we missed the circus one) but we did quite a lot of them.
Not much to say about the creds, the rat one had a maze in the queueline which freaked a lot of people out, some teenage girls were having quite the freakout over this so it obviously worked. Kind of like the raptor attack queueline. The cred was decent for what it was and went around twice. The shooting dark ride was good, it had some interesting props but it was hard to focus on these when you were trying to shoot at things.
Toverland
We had decided to bail on Billybird to get to Tover at a decent time and ended up being early for the meet up. This was my first time to tover (slag was the only one I’d done before on the trip) so there was a lot to do and it got busy quite quickly.
Things to note
-The new water ride is cute and chill but takes a long time to get around, cool idea how it goes inside under Fenix though
-Spinning cred was one of the best spinners I’ve done, really good fun
-Troy was as ridiculous as people had said, definitely lived up to the hype! Really aggressive and relentless!
-Fenix was chill, only did it one and got some nice airtime on the hump but the helix wasn’t as intense as some had been making it out to be
-Bobsled thing, this was really fun and I got a good time on it but my goodness did the queue go on and on! It didn’t help that it broke down but this was really quite a queue and a half with the terrible throughput!
-I was a burden and insisted on getting the booster bike cred which involved horrible cattlepen queueing but the end ride in the dark was pretty cool in the end. They had even themed it with fire! Everyone came off glad that they had done it at night so I didn’t feel as bad!
-Everyone kept saying that they weren’t used to queuing this much so it was probably a bad day to go for the first time but luckily I got all the creds
-The scarezones that I did see (mostly the circus one and the destroy ones) were really cool. Loved the minotaur guy that was going round the destroy area. He was giving so many people really good frights. Never seen the dragging spade trick before but I watched a video the other day with it in so obviously it’s not just a tover thing, that was quite unnerving and worked well with crowds.
-Fog. So much fog. I noted at the top of the troy lift hill on my night ride the ridiculous amount of fog that had settled around the park. It was like a 2 miles radius and looked amazing!!
-Our idea of coming back to the sit down restaurant for dinner soon evaporated and we found it a struggle to find anywhere selling anything edible with a queue less than half an hour. We finally got nachos and hot dogs at the beer stand, so also got some beer so it wasn’t all bad!
-My one downside to the park (apart from the crowds) was the horrible sensory maze that we did that was the only maze we actually did. I ended up having a bit of an argument with the guy behind me because he kept squashing into me and it made me feel really uncomfortable. On top of that it was so long and boring. So I would not do that again.
-Destroy night ride was insane, so much fire and light and crazy woodieness
-Wish we had got over to Fenix in the night for a night ride and to see more of the scarezones but there was just too much to do and so many people there
The entrance area, as Serena said was very islands of adventure and I kept remarking on this during the day. That’s not a bad thing though, it’s a nice theme. Now that I’ve been I can add it to my list of places that I wouldn’t mind revisiting so that’s nice. Even as a first time visitor you can see how the park has grown and how the new area(s) really complete the park and give it a larger theme park feel.
The next day
We looked at the map and decided that we could recoup our cred losses and snap up the Billybird and Dippiedoe creds before I was dropped off at the airport and the others went on to Walibi. Billybird was really cute and had a very pretty location by the side of a lake. The cred was pretty unique and even had sort of airtime in it!
We also decided to try out some of the play equipment at the park because we’re really just a bunch of big kids. Highlights were the musical mechanical merry-go-round, noisy swings that made motorbike noises and the giant pillows.
A casual coffee to go...
Dippiedoe wasn’t quite as pleasant and chill but was still nice enough and a decent +2 stop. We then got some lunch (after finding one place closed) before I got my flight back to the UK.
Overall I had a great time with everyone, as always and got a +10 as well! Yay
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witchfinder
Giga Poster
I've done a trip report for Toverland here which has pics and thoughts about the park and the creds:
http://forums.coasterforce.com/thre...-toverland-–-october-2018.43055/#post-1043013
Aside from that I just want to say it was nice to meet up with some new people and also those that I've met on previous Lives. We were only at Toverland so didn't really get too involved with the group but as always it's fun to hang around with fellow goons. Thanks also to Serena for organising it all. I know some bits didn't quite go to plan (and those have already been mentioned) but as somebody who has been tasked with organising groups of people in the past I know it's a hard and sometimes stressful job so well done for keeping us in line for the most part
Regarding Toverland and Halloween, it was a great event, but it was so busy that it all became a bit stressful, especially for those of is that needed the creds, and while I know it would have been great to all stick together I think it was the right decsision for us to split into smaller groups to focus on what we wanted to do most. I think it highlighted the issue with going to a park where many of the group have been before and there are a minority that haven't, and maybe on future trips it's worth asking up front exactly what the members of the group want to get out of their trip? Maybe with some kind of basic poll.
Perhaps there's an argument on some trips with large groups for everyone meeting up and doing the new cred (where applicable) first, then splitting up to focus on what different sub-groups want to do most, then meeting up again for lunch/dinner and trying to end the day together? Anyway, overall I think it all worked out and everyone got to do what they wanted to, so that's the most important thing
http://forums.coasterforce.com/thre...-toverland-–-october-2018.43055/#post-1043013
Aside from that I just want to say it was nice to meet up with some new people and also those that I've met on previous Lives. We were only at Toverland so didn't really get too involved with the group but as always it's fun to hang around with fellow goons. Thanks also to Serena for organising it all. I know some bits didn't quite go to plan (and those have already been mentioned) but as somebody who has been tasked with organising groups of people in the past I know it's a hard and sometimes stressful job so well done for keeping us in line for the most part
Regarding Toverland and Halloween, it was a great event, but it was so busy that it all became a bit stressful, especially for those of is that needed the creds, and while I know it would have been great to all stick together I think it was the right decsision for us to split into smaller groups to focus on what we wanted to do most. I think it highlighted the issue with going to a park where many of the group have been before and there are a minority that haven't, and maybe on future trips it's worth asking up front exactly what the members of the group want to get out of their trip? Maybe with some kind of basic poll.
Perhaps there's an argument on some trips with large groups for everyone meeting up and doing the new cred (where applicable) first, then splitting up to focus on what different sub-groups want to do most, then meeting up again for lunch/dinner and trying to end the day together? Anyway, overall I think it all worked out and everyone got to do what they wanted to, so that's the most important thing
MouseAT
Hyper Poster
I have to open by stating that I was in a foul mood during the group section of the Toverland Live. In spite of people's best efforts, the delayed meet-up and faff really soured my enjoyment of the park for a while, and quite frankly I owe an apology to everyone who had to deal with my grouchy attitude that afternoon. Sorry to those of you who were on the receiving end of me at my worst. "I've had enough of this ****" Andy is not something any of my friends should be subjected to, and for the record, I appreciate the efforts that were made to make the day as enjoyable as possible under difficult (read: incredibly busy) circumstances.
However, whilst I believe that split days and late/staggered meetups seem to have been problematic on this Live (and this has been discussed in the 2019 planning topic, so I won't drag it up again), I don't think that splitting the group is a great idea, with the exception of if people want to split between rides and mazes after dark. Experiencing parks as a group is an important part of what defines CF, and I think trying to get more group hours on park and tackling major attractions in a logical order is far more important than breaking the group apart under normal circumstances. If everyone's going to do their own thing in their own little groups, then I have to question what the point would be of having an organised Live at all. Toverland seemed to be quiet enough pre-meet-up that most of the aggravation would have been avoided if the meet-up had been earlier in the day. I know that before the meet-up, Mushroom and I had been working around what we anticipated the group's priorities would be, and when things didn't really gel smoothly with what we'd expected, that's when I felt things went downhill for a while.
Slagharen/Hellendoorn turned out to be an awesome day, despite the faff of delayed meet-ups, simply because the group spirit was definitely there for the majority of it. I certainly had a great time at Slagharen, enjoying everything the park had to offer with a group of like-minded goons, and despite the late meet-up, faff, group split and early departure from Hellendoorn, I actually ended up having a great couple of hours there as well. I'm not really a fan of horror attractions, as I struggle with the suspension of disbelief, but after getting a nice +2, meeting up with everyone and enjoying a couple of walkthroughs, including the hilarity that was The Ring made for an amazing evening.
Toverland is an all-around awesome park, and I definitely intend to get myself back there in the not too distant future. What I saw of the Halloween attractions after dark are awesome, Booster Bike in the thick fog is a unique and enjoyable experience, DesTroy is spectacular, and after riding in the front row at night, I think I was in a state of shock for around at least the next 20 minutes or so, as my brain tried to process what the hell had just happened. The last few hours after the group split were actually remarkably laid back, in spite of tiredness and crowds. Good times.
I may have some photos at a later date, as I'm still sorting through loads, but I don't think I have many of the group this time around. I'll post an update if I get around to putting them online.
Anyway, thanks for the good times, and roll on 2019!
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witchfinder
Giga Poster
You've just reminded me I took a couple of photos of you guys on Booster Bike (the only ones I took that feature any CF members!)
SilverArrow
Certified Ride Geek
I like how you can see the fog even in the station! That was fun. Wasn't expecting them to have fire round the ride either!You've just reminded me I took a couple of photos of you guys on Booster Bike (the only ones I took that feature any CF members!)