Hutch Goes Dutch - Day 7 - Utrecht & Final Score

[Hutch]

Separating this one out from my general thread as I’m featuring some cultural stuff as well (meaning you’ll have to wait a few days for the creds).

After a couple Europe trips last year, both of which were group trips that I “tagged along” on, I wanted to do an international trip solo, do and see things at my own pace, and figure out all the logistics on my own. When settling on a country to visit, the Netherlands became a front runner. I wanted somewhere without a significant language barrier, somewhere with good public transportation, and of course somewhere I hadn’t visited yet for a mix of creds and culture. It also helped that there were some really good direct flight options from Boston.

I had an overnight flight out to Amsterdam on Friday the 13th (lucky me) and struggled to get some decent sleep. I basically kept my eyes shut for the duration but it was hit or miss. I was pretty concerned I’d hit a wall at some point during the day, but it turns out I had no problem. Somehow I was able to play through and stayed up late, without any sort of nap. Obviously I was exhausted towards the end of my day but I was never like “I’m gonna die” at any point, which happened when I arrived in Madrid last year.

Schiphol border patrol took about 45 min. It is what it is, but I was in no rush. I had an easy bus from the airport to Oud-Zuid. It basically dropped me off here:

My hostel was right around the corner. I was still a bit early for check-in, so I threw my backpack in a locker and started out with a wander down Vondelpark.

From there I looped myself back up towards the museum plaza.

I’ll say this, there were a bunch of museums I could’ve done on this trip, but I wasn’t terribly interested. If I was running out of things to do I could have, but I much prefer just wandering around and taking in the architecture.

The Rjiks especially was just swamped with tourists anyway. It had a bit of a queue to get in. It looked great though.

From there it was time to check back into my hostel. Might’ve accidentally woken up a Kiwi recovering from a crazy night out. I did a little turnaround and headed into the city center.

I have a **** ton of photos, so I’ll just dump them here and let you scroll. I apologize for the number of canal photos. Yes, it’s very basic, but at the same time they’re very pretty.

Because of my jet lag, I wasn’t quite hungry for a proper meal, but I did try a couple of Dutch snacks in the afternoon. I tried some herring, which honestly I wasn’t a fan of. You’ll see in a bit I had some Dutch mini pancakes, and those were awesome.

From there I worked my way back to the hostel.

Ok that’s enough for one day. I spent the rest of the evening hanging around at the hostel. I did this trip with the intention of meeting other solo travelers, and I will say I managed to make some friends. It’s very much a party hostel, busy with other travelers every night at the bar. Next thing you know these Aussies keep buying me jägerbombs and half the crowd is watching rugby. A few of us even went out for more drinks at another bar. Let’s just say that I’m really glad I didn’t have any plans to visit a park the next day.

 

[Hutch]

Day 2 - Zaanse Schans

I had plans to do a little trip up north to the Zaanse Schans, a historical neighborhood home to some classic windmills. It's a really easy train ride from Amsterdam Centraal.

On my way to find the nearest tram station, I realized it also happened to be the Amsterdam Marathon.

I found out that ALL public transit had a tap-in/tap-out system for your credit card, making future trips even easier and not having to worry about grabbing tickets off your phone. Absolutely loved this system.

The train drops you in the quaint little town of Zaandijk.

From there you cross the bridge over the Zaan River, where you’re greeted with this view.

It was all lovely. In terms of general sightseeing, this was probably the highlight of the trip.

Only two of them were moving: the green one which I believe was a paint mill, and this saw mill below.

The whole area is free to walk through, but they have some up-charges throughout that were around 5 euros each. The only one I really bothered with was the active sawmill, and it turned out to be super cool. The mill itself is actually called the Het Jonge Schaap, which translates to "The Young Sheep."

Up until today I was actually pretty unfamiliar with the mechanical engineering behind windmills, but it was really cool stuff. In this case, the blades rotate a bunch of cogs which eventually move a few pistons, which moves some saws up and down continuously.

It was also a pretty windy day, so this thing was moving pretty well. They have a few folks on the job, and they actually had to shut the mill down a couple of times because the wind was too strong.

Little dock where they collect the tree trunks:

Scale model of how the pistons work:

Sawdust accumulation underneath:

And while it’s all very much a tourist attraction at this point, the mills are still in business. Apparently, at least with the sawmill, it’s fitted for specific dimensions that modern electric systems don’t accommodate.

They have other stuff here too.

So that was a great 3 hours well spent, and I probably could’ve spent a little bit more. It's still a bit touristy (mostly towards southern end), but there's plenty of room to breathe.

On my way back to town, I wanted to check out Oedipus Brewing, which is known for having a few funky sours (my preferred type of beer). They’re located in Amsterdam-Noord, so I took the ferry across from Centraal, and from there it was just a stroll through the neighborhood.

It was nice to hang out there and relax for a bit.

One of the bartenders recommended this Neapolitan pizza place around the corner, and this was fantastic.

That was it for today. I took the subway back to my hostel and had a more “low-key” night at the bar with my hostel mates.

Don’t worry, we got creds up next!

 

[Hutch]

Day 3 - Walibi Holland

From Amsterdam Centraal, it’s about 2 hours to get to Walibi Holland via transit, which is fine. I had a train connection in Amersfoot, and then the Walibus from Harderwjik. The multiple connections seemed awkward, but it was pretty straightforward, and I never spent more than 10 min waiting around.

I didn’t manage to get into the park until 10:30, but it was fine because Untamed wasn’t even open when I got to the back. I think I saw an empty Goliath train be sent out as well, so maybe they tend to be leisurely on getting their rides open on time.

That meant Untamed already had a bit of a queue starting outside, but the timing worked out fine. They sent out a train by the time I got there, and five minutes later it opened up.

They started out with one train running, and I got on in about 20 min (single rider queue not quite open yet). Honestly I probably shouldn’t have even bothered Untamed first thing to begin with, especially since it already had a queue. I knew it would start out sluggish, and it was.

Each element still had decent airtime, but the whole thing just felt slow and awkward. I did manage to bag a front row ride though. Everyone was filling up from the back first, but the grouper didn’t mind when I asked if I could go anywhere.

I’ll talk more about it later, but so far it left a bit to be desired.

I do like this homage to Robin Hood though.

I took care of the new cred Eat My Dust next. Thankfully it wasn’t that shameless so I’m happy to grab the +1 this time while it was quiet.

Being an RCT player, it was pretty cool to get on Goliath after seeing the old Six Flags Holland recreation. Perhaps 10 years ago it would’ve been one of the best coasters in Europe, but it’s still really good.

For whatever reason, there was no batcher handling the main, single rider, and fast track queues at the station, so after waiting a train to dispatch I just saw myself to the front row. I did a quick reride as well, getting front and back within 10 minutes. With the main queue already full, single rider may as well be line jumping. Good thing I got those rows too as the afternoon did have a batcher assigning rows for everyone, including the main queue.

So you’ve got a great first and final act (surprisingly really good Stengel dive too), but the middle was a bit forgettable. The helices were just a little too big to give any good positives, and the curved hills didn’t do a whole lot (luckily Intamin figured those hills out in later additions).

I think I rate this pretty similarly to Superman: The Ride in New England. Superman has the better layout and more consistent with airtime and forces, but the airtime feels much better on Goliath, all because of the T-Bars.

Wasn’t quite ready for this to ruin my day, so saved it for later.

I actually would've been interested in this, if it were warmer out.

Single rider was also very useful for Lost Gravity. I got a couple rides throughout the day, both taking around 20 mins. Bit slow to get on, but far more preferable than the full queue.

This surprised me! Part of me was kinda expecting it to be bad, but it did a lot of interesting things that caught me off guard. I think a big part of that is the restraints, which give a lot of upper body freedom.

The drop in particular is the highlight, folding your body sideways on the wing seats.

Quick ejector airtime hill, funky turnaround thing, more airtime, and a nice break to let you take in all the madness that just happened.

The second half never looked that great, but it was still pretty solid. More sudden pops of airtime and quirky rolls and turns.

The fountain burst while you’re upside down is also quite cool.

Yeah, really good! I think I even preferred it to Goliath. It just had more interesting and intense stuff going on.

Both of my rides were in the wing seats in the back. It didn’t run THAT well, but I didn’t really mind.

Got the other family cred Drako nextdoor. I waited a couple of cycles… one of them had a 5-year-old assisting the operator, and on the other cycle it was a grown teenage goon.

Ok what the hell is Speed of Sound? Lol

I’ll tell you what it is: by far the best boomerang. Mostly because of the lack of headbanging, and ridiculous club theme.

It was time for Condor. Ugh.

Yeah this was really bad. As soon as you hit the first inversion it’s just a car crash until the brakes.

I’m not sure what’s the worst SLC I’ve done, but it’s a toss up between this, T3, and Limit. But if Condor had the old restraints instead of vests, it would easily take the cake. I can’t imagine what that would’ve been like.

Had a quick bite to eat (the spot next to Condor was a disaster, but no wait for the sandwich place up front), and then it was time for Xrpress: Platform 13. It was actually pretty good! I knew nothing about the theme, but walking through the queue was pretty well done.

And the coaster rode fine! It’s been over 13 years since I did Rockin’ Rollercoaster. I loved it back then but it was my first launch coaster and I only had like 10 creds then. I was pretty curious to see if these models were actually kinda bad, but here I had absolutely no headbanging or shuffling, at least in the front. Honestly I probably would’ve reridden it since it was a walk-on, but I was prioritizing the better stuff.

I wasn’t really interested in the rest of the ride lineup, or at least there was nothing else unique that I knew about, but I made sure to get a ride on La Grande Roue.

Pictures do NOT do this justice, but a surprise highlight of Untamed was cresting the lift hill and seeing THAT view. Honestly, it’s become my second favorite lift hill view ever after Wildfire. It’s such a gorgeous look at the colorful farmlands sprawling for miles, with hundreds of wind turbines across the horizon. I’m shocked I haven’t seen anyone bring this up before.

From there I did some rerides, starting with Lost Gravity, Goliath, and finishing up with a few on Untamed. The single ride for Untamed was pretty hit or miss. I think at most it took me 25-30 min, but with my last ride I lucked out and it only took 5. I probably would’ve been better off in the standby queue honestly, especially since they got the second train on.

After a lukewarm first ride, Untamed was MUCH better in the afternoon. It felt formulaic in the morning, but this time it was tossing me around with no remorse. Even some of the overbanked corners would slam you to the side.

I love the layout. There’s more inversions than usual, but there’s a ton of opportunity for various types of airtime. Floatiness in inversions, sustained ejector in some of the bigger hills, and rapid bunny hops that go all out at the end. Really glad I was able to get a decent number of rides on this, especially after only getting two on Wildcat’s Revenge recently.

I think I left at around 6. I could’ve stayed a bit longer, especially since the Walibus runs every half hour, but with it being a two hour journey back to Amsterdam I didn’t want to get back too late.

I had a great time at the park though. Looking back I’m really glad I did it before the other Dutch parks, as you’ll see Walibi Holland really pales in comparison to them. Even then, this is still a very nice park, nicer than most parks in America. Compared to other European parks I’ve been to, it’s probably one of the lesser ones. Honestly it kind of reminded me of Thorpe Park, as in that it’s all generally pleasant with a decent amount of big coasters, but familiar in typical theme park design. That’s probably thanks to the old Six Flags tenure. For example, it was weird seeing Goliath at a dead end, but at half the length of the park.

Since it was my last night in Amsterdam, I had another fun night at the hostel, and a bunch of us went out clubbing. Funny highlight was when some British dude walked into our room right after he had checked in, and the first words I said to him were “You wanna come out with us?” and he said “Let’s go!”. The hostel life was a ton of fun. I met a lot of cool people, had some great conversations, and even made some friends along the way.

 

[TilenB]

I can’t imagine what that would’ve been like.

I can only confirm it was absolutely dreadful and managed to draw some blood from a pimple that was forming behind the ear of my hormonal teenage head. Never again.

Nice to hear you've had a great day out. I need to get myself back to Walibi, as the last time I've been, the operations were absolutely crippled by social distancing (trains going out half empty after you've spent an hour having people breathe down your neck in the queue, brilliant) and the few rides I had on the big guns didn't really feel like enough in retrospect. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on Toverland and Efteling.

 

[Hutch]

Day 4 - Delft

In between my overnight stays in Amsterdam and Utrecht, I thought today would be a good time to explore Delft. Thanks to @Indy for suggesting this city back during my planning process. It was a great way to spend a few hours.

Still feeling tired from our night out, I left Amsterdam late in the morning, getting to Delft around midday. I would’ve taken a direct train, but it turns out that route had a minor collision, throwing off the schedule. So I ended up having to take a couple of transfers, but it didn’t take much longer than the non-stop journey anyway.

I failed to find a nearby storage locker for my big backpack, so I ended up just carrying it around with me, which was honestly fine. I did a lot of walking around, but took a few breaks along the way to relax and take in the scenery. Today had the nicest weather of the week too. Sunny but with the perfect temperature for a jacket and carrying around a large bag.

Delft is one of the smaller cities in the country, located in between Rotterdam and The Hague. It's basically a smaller Amsterdam without all the tourism and far less coffeeshops, but still with all the old architecture and canals. As you go further away from the main square, the city seems relatively quiet, but I was there on a Tuesday afternoon so I’m not sure if it really has a regular hustle and bustle or what the nightlife is like.

The main square is obviously the city’s main draw, featuring the City Hall and the magnificent Nieuwe Kerk (New Church).

In cities like these where there isn’t much of a skyline, the Nieuwe Kerk just looks even more imposing.

I sat down for some lunch just outside the main square and wandered around for a bit.

The Oude Kerk (Old Church) is their other historic building which includes a pretty cool leaning tower.

I looped back around to the main square and climbed the main church. It’s a literal hike to get up there, taking about 10 minutes to crawl up these narrow spiral staircases, sometimes having to squeeze past others flowing the opposite way.

Great views on top though, including the skylines of The Hague and Rotterdam. Very windy, if a little nerve-racking.

The only other thing I wanted to check out was the Oostpoort (East Gate). I hung around down there for a little bit, then slowly began making my way back to the train station.

Luckily this time there were no issues taking a direct train to Utrecht, so it was nice to relax on the train for about an hour.

I didn’t do a whole lot that night. After settling into my hostel I just went out to get some food. The next two days were park days, so I was in bed relatively early this time around.

 

[Hutch]

Sorry for taking a while with this one. Hoping to pick up the pace with these last few!

Day 5 - Toverland

So normally, the transit journey to Toverland would’ve been a train from Utrecht Centraal to Sevenum (nearest town to Toverland) and then a bus connection to the park, but of course the week I visited there was scheduled rail maintenance cutting through town. So the train stopped a couple stations earlier and from there I had to take two shuttle buses to Sevenum. So a train ride, two shuttle buses, and a local bus each way, making the journey go from 2 hours to 3 hours. Honestly, it is what it is. It didn’t feel too long, and it got me there. Annoyingly, the second shuttle bus basically drives past the park on the way to the bus connection, but what can you do.

Because of the three hour journey, I didn’t get into the park until 11:30. There were earlier transit options, but I wasn’t about to wake up at 6:15 in the morning. I figured 11:30 was still fine anyway since it’s not a big park… but not on a day like today…

My priority would’ve been hitting Blitz Bahn first thing, but that was already at an hour with a full queue, so I missed my window there. My biggest mistake of the day was not taking care of the kiddie cred first thing… we’ll get to that later…

Using the park app to analyze queue times, just about everything was pretty crowded. Booster Bike almost an hour, even Fenix around 50 minutes. Well it turns out that there was a school vacation in South Holland, and combine that with the Halloween s*** going on, every teenager from the country was at Toverland today. Pathways were crowded, and queues were overflowing between young groups of friends just being loud and annoying. Oh well. Only five creds though right?

Luckily Dwervelwind was actually pretty easy. It was listed at 45 minutes when I entered, but it only took 20. The staff were killing it here, with one train entering the lift hill as the other hits the brakes.

While perhaps not as much spinning as I had hoped, the ride was very pleasant. I loved the onboard audio and station design, and it’s a solid little layout.

I wasn’t quite bothered with the crowds yet, because honestly I was just loving my first few moments walking around the park and seeing everything. But I really fell in love with Toverland when I walked through Avalon.

What a masterpiece in theme park design. Striking B&M with a beautiful color scheme weaving in and out of tunnels, pathways, and rides. Gorgeous mix of terrain, trees, and water making everything seem natural. Genius long term planning with the Gerstlauer fitting snugly in the helix. Every person working in the theme park planning industry needs to visit this park and go “Ok, let’s do THAT.”

Even with the crowds, somehow the B&M in the back of the park had an hour queue, overflowing outside the entrance. One of the habits I tend to have is moving past crowded rides in hopes that they’ll die down later, only for them to never die down, so I just end up wasting time wandering around not riding anything. I gambled that on Fenix, settling for a ride on Merlin’s Quest first.

I’m really glad I did this when I did. It still took around 25 minutes to get on, but it was close to an hour later on in the day, so I definitely would not have bothered then. The dark portion was quite good, though the outdoor section was okay. Good to try it out I suppose.

Sadly Fenix held firm at an hour, so I sucked it up.

Wasn’t a fun wait. The queue moved fairly slow, dispatches were just not what they should be on a ride like this, and I was stuck in between groups of loud teenagers, making it challenging to take in the themed backstory and preshow reel.

Right side was the obvious preference because of the helix. I would’ve liked the front, but given the operations it probably would’ve taken an extra 15 min, and at this point I just wanted to get on the ride. So I did the back, but honestly I wish I went somewhere further up as it was a little bumpy. I don’t know what it is, but I feel like B&M wingriders used to be known for being smooth rides, but lately I’ve noticed a few that are quite rattly. So who knows anymore.

Smoothness aside, the ride is very good. I always really liked the look of this ride, between the themed area, tight layout, and interaction. It’s obviously short, but the sequence of elements is great. The animatronic at the beginning is also pretty incredible (though I wish the turn out of the station was more than just a shed).

Leading up to riding, I never minded the short layout, but I will admit hitting the brake run felt a bit cheap after waiting an hour. And I didn’t want to do that again, so that’ll be my only ride.

Luckily the best thing about Fenix is the aesthetics, and you don’t have to wait in line for that.

I grabbed a quick lunch (had this seasonal sandwich), and then it was time to pick up the pace.

Booster Bike was slammed, as were the warehouses. Even the kiddie cred had a full queue… more on that later.

So I settled for our boy Troy. Another hour queue that was spilling out the entrance, but at least the crew was absolutely killing it. More often than not, a train would be going up the lift hill by the time the other hits the brake run.

I had heard that Troy was approaching on the rougher side, so I made sure to get the very front. That was definitely the right move because it HITS. It paced incredibly well and was just beneath the threshold of roughness where it would’ve been too much for me.

I got a reride later and did the front again, so while I never did the back, I had a feeling that would’ve been a little too much for me. If the line was short I would’ve loved to try it as I’m sure it would’ve been ridiculous all together. But the front was still great though.

The layout is awesome too. It’s been several years since I saw a POV, so there were definitely a couple surprises. Even towards the end when you think it’s about to be over, it keeps going for another helix or so. Loved it. I’m thinking it’s my third favorite GCI after Renegade and Mystic. It’s gritty, it’s got airtime and laterals, and it’s awesome.

Favorite moment was easily this twisted hill after the station fly-by. What would’ve been a solid pop of ejector airtime is spiced up by somehow having three directional changes in a row.

I still needed to close the deal with the remaining creds. Booster Bike had been at 80+ minutes for quite some time now. The indoor family cred also had a full queue, but the app held it at 25 minutes. Hoping it was accurate, I decided to hit up Toos-Express, and then suffer through the Vekoma.

Mistakes were made.

I’m still kicking myself for not grabbing this when I walked past it in the morning. “Oh, it’ll be fine later,” I thought to myself. Nope. Why the f*** did I end up waiting an hour for this? Honestly, I only have myself to blame for this one.

Sure, the operations were bad here. But I’ve also skipped creds in the past with unworthy waits. Why didn’t I do the same here? I think about 20 minutes in I felt like I was in too deep and just needed to see it out, but this was easily a low point in my enthusiast career. 60 minutes for a family cred.

If anything (and if I may channel my inner @Matt N on it), it’s actually pretty solid for a family cred. I rode in the back and it actually does things to you on that drop.

I only had time for one more ride so I could ensure I could make the bus out of here, so it was time for the last cred. Well, I got in line for Booster Spite, realized that it only runs one train, and decided I didn’t want to wait for that s***. Instead I got another ride on Troy. Even though I haven’t heard great things about it, I was actually interested in trying out this model as I really enjoy motorbike coasters in general. What I should’ve done was scrap the family cred and do Booster instead, but obviously I f***ed that one up. At the end of the day, ending things off with Troy was the right move.

On my way out, thinking the park couldn’t have gotten any more crowded, I turned around the corner and came across this:

Turns out it was a Halloween show/parade covering the main entrance region. I had a little time to kill so I stuck around for a bit. The area had some decent production value with music throughout and occasional pyro bursts, but it was difficult to see the actors with this mess of crowds.

And that was my day for Toverland. Certainly not an ideal visit. I guess I just never expected a park like this to be too crowded, much less at capacity. That said, the crowds can’t keep me from loving the park. The theming is just incredible, and the whole design is everything I want in a theme park. I missed out on a few rides (beyond Booster Spite, I would’ve liked to try the bobsled and the Gerst Sky Fly), but it is what it is.

Things got a little interesting on my way back though. I took the local bus back to Sevenum where I’d wait for the first of two shuttle bus connections… only problem is, the shuttle bus didn’t show up on time. 5 minutes after the scheduled arrival I started to get a bit concerned. The two remaining connections I had were short, so this was throwing off my whole transport plan back to Utrecht.

Luckily these two Dutch guys were waiting for the same shuttle, and after chiming in with my English, I realized we were all trying to make the same train. After wondering why the hell an American was doing out here in rural Netherlands, one of the guys called his mom to come to the rescue. They offered us a ride directly to the train station, giving us time to spare to make the train back to Utrecht.

What was becoming an “oh f***” moment in a foreign country turned into one of the highlights of the trip… hitching a ride with Dutch strangers and having some really cool conversations. As you might expect, I had to explain the whole theme park thing when they were wondering why I was out here. Turns out one of them was at Toverland that day as well, and the other worked there 15 years ago.

I got back to Utrecht at around 9:30. Since I had another early start the next morning I just grabbed some quick fast food and got ready for bed.

Final park of the trip up next! You all know what it is.

 

[Hutch]

Day 6 - Efteling

The journey to Efteling was thankfully much easier than yesterday’s hike to Toverland. I ended up taking the same train in the morning, this time getting off earlier at ‘s-Hertogenbosch (however the f*** you pronounce that). From there it’s an easy bus ride to the park, however I made plans to meet up with a local goon friend, so he grabbed me from the train station and we arrived at the park at around 9:30.

Beyond the coasters, I didn’t know much about the park. I knew there were a lot of dark rides, but I went in blind with those, and I knew there was some kind of fairytale forest. My friend was more or less an Efteling expert, so he managed to show me almost everything about the park. Without him, I would’ve missed quite a lot if I were on my own, from hidden details to certain rides.

Oh, and of course I knew about this haunting entrance. I mean come on. Isn’t this incredible?

Just walking through this park for the first time, you can already tell this park is next level.

As expected, Symbolica's queue was open prior to the official 10 AM opening, so before long we were among the first to ride.

Loved it. For context, this was my first time trying out one of these trackless dark rides, and it honestly blew my mind. The way they have these giant Roombas skirting around each other in different directions is just a marvel in engineering. Combine that with the set pieces in every room makes for a wonderful ride. It may not offer the thrills or intensity other dark rides may have, but this put a huge smile on my face and honestly almost made me cry. Easily one of the best dark rides I’ve ever been on, and arguably the best ride in the park. What a great way to start the day.

Even the pre show, without understanding the Dutch conversation, was really cool to see. Especially loved the thing with the stairs here too.

Following my friend’s guidance, we basically went full cred mode. Started out with both sides on Joris en de Draak, a surprisingly small yet equally fun GCI. Seriously, this was great.

And a casual triple up to start the ride? Take that Boulder Dash.

We nabbed the fire side first, which was pretty solid, but water was easily the better layout. Perhaps by the time we got water it had warmed up a bit better, but this side had more interesting things going on, particularly in the second act. More directional changes and subtle forces that kept tossing you around at fast paced.

This turnaround also had the new titan track, which felt great. It probably needed it as I could see that being a rough patch.

Python was actually good?! I had heard solid things about the retrack/reprofiling, but it really does ride well.

The best thing about these old Arrow/Vekoma loopers is the g-forces in the loops, and I had a nice grey-out in the second one. Even the corkscrews were decent, as was the helix.

It is funny going from all these incredibly themed rides to having a stock loopscrew with minimal theming. But if anything, it’s nicely presented the new unique track style looks great.

Vliegende Hollander had a pretty full queue but it was fine as there was plenty to look at. It didn’t take more than a half hour to get on anyway.

This was much better than expected. I hadn’t heard great things about it, and yeah the coaster section isn’t a very inspired finale, but the indoor portion was great. Loved the foggy/swampy atmosphere it dumps you in, and the little section right before the lift hill was fun too.

Baron 1898 ticks all the boxes of what makes a good dive machine: great pedestrian interaction, no midcourse brake run, and fantastic theming.

The theming really makes the ride in this case. From the steampunk support structure, to the lighting effects in the preshow, to the mine shaft room on ride, it was all very well done. Climbing up the lift hill feels like a big deal, and it honestly it reminded me of Karnan’s climb (though that ride’s anticipation is a step up).

Of course, the layout isn’t mind blowing, but it has all the highlights of other dive machines: fun drop into a misty tunnel, floaty inversions, and a little airtime hill. The sounds of the wailing ghosts also made the tunnel really cool.

After a nice lunch, we grabbed Max + Moritz, which were pretty easy. The capacity on this is very impressive (two trains with 40 riders each!), as are the animatronics in the station.

The ride was fine. I liked the blue side a little better. It had a few more moments of decent laterals.

Vogel Rok was scheduled for some spiteful maintenance, so that means all the remaining creds were taken care of. We wandered through the other side of the park, hitting up other notable rides on the way.

First up was this 4D cinema Fabula, which is probably the worst ride we did at the park. It wasn’t BAD, it’s just pretty outdated and the theme doesn’t fit well with the rest of the park. It had a lot of the usual water sprays and air blowing, but the air system would make an awkward noise and was used way too many times. The film looked very nice, but it was just a cute kids cartoon.

I kind of lost my sense of direction for a bit as my friend showed me other hidden gems of the park, with the next two bits I didn’t know existed. This Diorama was amazing, complete with working trains, gondolas, windmills, and stylized architecture.

And the classic carousel from the 1800s. Didn't ride it, but just as cool to see it in action.

Think we did Vilda Volta next. I was starting to hit somewhat of a wall at this point, and it didn’t help that I had to stand through two preshows. Luckily I really enjoyed the ride. It’s been almost a decade since I did Hex at Alton Towers, and looking back I don’t think I appreciated this style of ride then, but I really enjoyed it here. The set was very impressive. Music was good too.

Did some more exploring.

Checked out the museum as well.

And I think next was Carnival Festival, which I went in completely blind. My friend described it as an It’s a Small World type ride, but going into the queue I kept wondering why we were doing this kiddie ride (the TV’s in the queue were also showing some toddler show…).

The ride seemed cute and innocent at first. But before long, it raised some eyebrows.

You know if this ride was in Disneyworld or any other park in America, it’d inevitably get rethemed (resulting in Floridians crying about it).

We took a little break to relax before checking out the Raveleijn show. I’m generally not a theme park show guy, but I was curious.

If anything, the facades and overall set are fantastic. That’s about it though. It had some cute horse combat and sword fighting that obviously requires a lot of talent, it just wasn’t anything special. The magic trick with the princess was cool I guess, but the big dragon at the end just looked tired, especially for an animatronic that isn’t supposed to be THAT old (2014?).

I was still a bit tired from walking around so I suppose it was nice to sit down with a half decent distraction, but I can’t really recommend it.

I managed to get a second wind, so it was time for the Fairy Tale Forest.

This was all very nice. Generally quiet, secluded from the rest of the park, and discovering different set pieces and animatronics. Obviously you have the familiar stories, but there were plenty that I had never heard of before.

We spent an hour and a half walking through the whole thing. It all pretty much holds up, even some of the animatronics from the ‘80s.

Highlights for me were the Cinderella animatronic, the witch’s transformation from Snow White, and the one with the old man and the hummingbird.

With the sun going down, it was time for Pagode.

This might be my new favorite observation tower, mainly for the aesthetic and structural design of the ride itself. But you can’t complain about the view either.

That was basically it for all the rides we needed to hit. Unfortunately I had to miss out on Fata Morgana, Droomvlucht, and Vogel Rok, but I’m impressed we still managed to do everything else in a day. All the more reason to return!

From there, it was time for some rerides. Symbolica was practically a walk-on for the single rider (still had to wait through the preshow).

And got a couple of night rides, including another front row on Baron…

…and a final ride on Joris. This REALLY popped off compared to our morning rides. Fantastic.

And that left us with just enough time to catch Aquanura. Gotta say… WAY more interesting than fireworks.

It’s not often I visit a park that emits that magical feeling, but Efteling is the perfect example. I gushed about Toverland’s theme park design, but Efteling really does set the bar. It also sets the price apparently: a ticket is only 48 euros, and my friend actually got me half off from his season pass. Just wild to think that I only paid 24 euros to get in when the equivalent of this park in Florida costs 100 more.

The theming is incredible on nearly every ride, and I love how nearly everything is cohesive throughout the park, instead of having something like Hogwarts sitting next to Jurassic Park. I’m also just in awe of how many moving parts there are throughout the entire property.

Operations were all fantastic. The park was decently crowded but I never had to wait more than 30 minutes for anything. And even then the queues are interesting enough to keep you engaged while you wait. Looking back, I'm really impressed with the amount of stuff we did.

As one might expect, the only thing that keeps it from being my favorite European park is that, while it has a few pretty good coasters, it’s missing that one amazing coaster all my other favorite parks have. Regardless, this is still a Top 10 park for me, and clearly the best park of this trip.

I’ve got one more part left in this report, a proper full day in Utrecht.

 

[Hutch]

Day 7 - Utrecht

I had a final full day free in Utrecht before flying back home the next day. After a few early mornings, I ended up sleeping in and having a lazy morning in the hostel. It was absolutely disgusting, so I wasn’t in any rush to get outside. I guess I lucked out pretty well with the weather overall though. I ran into a few sprinkles throughout the week, but I guess if I had to have a day where it was consistently raining, today was probably the best choice.

I ended up going to the Spoorwegmuseum, or Dutch Railway Museum. It wasn’t exactly high on my list of things to do, but it kept me out of the rain for a couple hours. It was about a 15 min walk from my hostel.

I think just about every family in the neighborhood had the same idea: take the kids to the train museum and avoid the rain. To be fair, there were a lot of cool educational activities for kids to try out, but there were still lots of genuinely interesting tidbits to read about.

Hope you like pictures of trains.

I had no idea the hyperloop was a thing, so learning about that was pretty cool.

Main area where most of the activities are, including the chance to pull a train carriage.

They had some stuff outside as well. I checked out some of it, but not for too long as it was still gross out.

Gotta love the models as well.

So I’m not a train goon, but that was a solid way to spend a couple hours or so. Definitely something I’d recommend for families or actually train enthusiasts.

Wandered back where I came from, on the way to find lunch.

I grabbed lunch at the Streetfood Club, this cool restaurant with lots of international bites. I ended up sitting down here for a couple hours just chilling and having a couple drinks, again not wanting to spend a whole lot of time outside.

Wandered around a bit more.

Despite being so tall, it took me a couple days to recognize the Dom Church, but that’s probably because of all this scaffolding. So it looks kinda sh**y.

I explored the mall a little bit more. I had passed through it a few times as it leads right into Utrecht Centraal, but I decided to actually browse and do a little shopping. This might be the busiest mall I’ve ever been to. Malls back in the states don’t pull the crowds like they used too, but obviously it helps that this is in a city center next to a major train station.

I went back to the hostel to regroup for a bit and figure out places for dinner. I found this nice little tapas restaurant next to one of the canals, and it was by far the best meal I had all week. I had a few plates from the menu, but they also bring out these little bites not on the menu that the chef prepares on the fly. It was the most expensive meal of the trip, but 43 euros still isn’t bad and the food was definitely worth it.

And that basically did it for my trip! My flight home was around midday the next day, so I just had another sleep in and moseyed on over to Schiphol.

When it comes to Utrecht, I don't think I had the best impression of the city, but I think that comes down to my one free day just being really gross out, so I spent most of my time indoors. I'll probably come back at some point though. The centralized location works very well for the parks (I realized Walibi Holland would've been easier to get to from Utrecht as well). I still enjoyed it though. It wasn't that touristy, and I liked the mix of old Dutch charm and modern city design.

I’ve managed to do some pretty cool trips over the past couple years, but this was easily the best one I’ve ever done. Mainly because it was all MY trip, whereas a lot of other trips were organized by friends and I was just kind of “tagging along.” That’s not to say the other trips I’ve done and the company I’ve had haven’t been great, but this was my first time doing solo international travel, planning everything out on my own, and doing the things I wanted to do without having to worry about others.

 

[Hutch]

Alright here's a crude attempt for the overall map of the trip (each number representing the day of the trip).

Park Rankings:
1. Efteling
2. Toverland
3. Walibi Holland

Top 5 Coasters
1. Untamed
2. Troy
3. Joris en de Draak
4. Lost Gravity
5. Goliath

Best Flat/Dark Ride - Symbolica
New Creds - 19
Spites - 2 (19/21 = 90%; not including dark ride spites at Efteling)
Best non-theme park attraction - Zaanse Schans
Best City - This is a tough one. I think I had the most fun in Amsterdam, but mostly for the hostel life. I recognize that Delft and Utrecht have better aspects though.