After my trip to Parc Asterix in April I just had to go back. I took Asterix noobs Patrick and Benin with me for a very cheap weekend away to enjoy the delights the park has to offer with two evenings in Paris. I begin with the evening before Asterix times....
Friday 11th June 2010
After finishing work at 9pm I got on the Victoria Line down to Victoria station. Upon entering the main train station I met up with Benin and Patrick and we continued on to the coach station. We checked in and awaited our coach. After some faff and everyone getting confused about the location of our coach we finally boarded and sat at the back of the coach. It was hard to get comfortable with the lack of leg room and the heat being so intense, didn't help that the driver didn't turn the engine on till last minute so we didn't get any air con to help cool us down.
It reached 10:30 and the coach finally left the station. The journey was boring and quite uncomfortable. I think we annoyed a lot of the other passengers with our insistence on talking till after the tunnel. Exiting the coach during the tunnel was also an annoyance as half the other passengers decided to sleep and sprawl themselves all over the place making it hard to walk past without hitting them. Biggest highlight of this journey was stopping before entering the tunnel for toilet times, we found a screen playing Finding Nemo so we stood and watched that for a few minutes
Another highlight from the journey was exiting the train and with all the mist and lights it looked like we entered the World of Tron which was uber-cool. Sleep was then had after our initial shock of coolness.
Saturday 12th June 2010
When I awoke we were driving into the coach station in Paris (Galleni). We got off the coach, happy to be off the thing and ventured down into the Metro station. We purchased our two-day metro tickets and headed down to the train. After a few changes we finally arrived at the station outside the Louvre museum (Palais-Royal station). It was about 7:30am yet we were awake and happy to be in Paris with Asterix times just a couple of hours away.
We were hungry so we opted for McDonalds breakfast (it was one of about 3 places open). Due to my tiredness I ordered in the most retarded way possible and made a complete fool of myself, oh wells. The breakfast was nice and I loved my little selection of pastries.
After now full we began our search for the coach. With the very cryptic clues from the French version of the Asterix website we navigated our way through the Louvre shopping area and found the coach area. We purchased our very expensive coach tickets and went round the corner to await coach times. I took the opportunity of this coach journey (about 40 mins) to get some extra sleep in.
I awoke just as the coach was turning off the motorway into the road down to Asterix, that was some amazing timing by myself
Now in France a Saturday is a school day however we seemed to find the one Saturday all the schools go to Parc Asterix! We counted about 8 coaches or school trips (a lot of them actually being for older year groups). This was not a good sign so we opted to expect the worst and just relax. This was hard once getting into the park as the scene after the gates were dropped for the park opening looked like this...
Busy times indeed. However seeing Asterix's little smile on top of the mountain made things all ok...
There was one ride I wanted to start our day with (as we somehow missed it back in April) was the Vekoma madhouse. It didn't have a queue so it seemed like a great idea. We queued up and in no time at all we were entering the first room.
Don't read the next few paragraphs if you don't want the attraction spoiled before you go
We were a tad confused when we entered the first room. We were greeted by a small village where we had to look into individual windows where our picture was taken and then our photos turned into something that looks like characters in the comics. It was random but cool, then we continued into the next room and our faces lit up with joy and amusement. On one wall your photo appears on a large screen, on the left the wall is full of Roman legionnaires and your face appears on their bodies and on the right wall these legionnaires with your face on march along. It is so amazing and so well done, it's also hilarious and just gets all 50 guests into a great mood.
You can play spot peep in the above photo
So on to the next room. We enter a small tent and are told to look up at this balcony. The curtains open and this fantastic animatronic of Cesar appears who goes on to talk about something in French. He was so awesome though and was even better than most of the animatronics in the Disney parks. The room then rotates and reveals Asterix and Obilix on a screen. They go on to say something in French and then Obilix punches the screen, the platform shakes (which is awesome) and then rotates round to a door.
The door leads to a corridor which smelt rather funny. It wasn't till we entered the next room that we identified it as chlorine. The next room is this amazing fountain area. Some music then starts up and four women are singing while washing something, they are projected on to waterfalls of water in each corner. It is so cool. Then the annoying character that I can't remember the name of appears on a wall, tries to sing with them but it's so bad that everything goes mental and water is going all over the place, it's so epic and all the water effects would make Amanda Thompson wet herself with excitement.
It all calms down and then we entered the final part of the attraction, the madhouse. The theme of the room is of a Roman ship which is really cool. There are screens in the ceiling and walls to show you what's going on outside the ship. Basically Asterix and Obilix come along and spin you down into the depths of the sea, an octopus then spins you back up to the surface and the ride ends. It's absolutely amazing and the effects are so much better than Hex. This attraction makes Hex look unthemed and cheap. It's just so awesome, full of humour, cool effects and is just fantastic fun. LOVE IT!
Spoilers over
Well, how the hell could the day get any better? We had just been on the best dark ride ever and the park is really busy, what do we choose next? Oh yeah...TON OF AIR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The queue looked horrendous and according to the little signpost the queue from where we were would take 90 mins. Benin was excited about riding Zeus...
And meerkat was spited by Zeus, maybe another time Mr Meerkat
The queue ended up being about an hour yet the queue felt like 30 mins. This was helped by long conversations about, I dunno, life. It was also helped by the absolutely bizarre interaction with the group of Parisian teenagers in front of us. Every now and then they would ask us about certain words and about us. However I did get the feeling they mainly focused on me which was a great concern and huge confusion and randomness when one of them started yelling French that I did not understand. The guys reaction when I said I was from London was amusing though, but overall it was just random and awkward.
Anyways, Zeus times happened and just as I remembered from April, it was epic. Patrick and Benin seemed to agree too. The idea was to then walk round to Goudurix and ride that. However when we arrived there was a ridiculously long queue. The same went for the dark ride and swinging ship near it too. We decided to walk through the medieval area through to the Victorian area. The park is so well themed and in one part of the Medieval area they had one guy putting together some stain glass windows and another guy doing pottery which was really cool to see.
We arrived at Oxygenarium, a random spinny dingy ride. The queue wasn't too bad and the ride is great fun, getting some insane spinning on the way down. It seems a shame that there isn't a big splash at the bottom of the drop but it's quite nice to relax after all that spinning.
We were hungry so food was the next option. The choice in the area was sandwiches or hot dogs. Neither seemed to appealing to me (I was starving and wanting something cooked) but I opted for the hot dog, as did Benin. Patrick went for the sandwich option. The food was nice but with the pricing being very similar to DLP it was a little bit costly.
We had about 10-15 mins before the big stunt show started and as it was in the area we opted to go for that. I had no idea what to expect and it really blew me away. It's such a great show full of comedy, amazing stunts and a fun little story. The stage is really on an epic scale with it being a dockyard. A train comes out on 'stage' and the boat explodes and falls backwards, it's insane. There are loads of explosions, vehicles and as previously mentioned, excellent stunts. I was just so impressed with this show and we decided that it must be seen for a second time on the second day.
After that epic show we headed back over to Goudurix to hope that the queue had gone down. Go down it did, it went from being about 2 hours to about an hour and with a two train operation the queue moved quickly. Most peeps tend to moan about the roughness of this Vekoma looper and in my opinion it isn't. It has some very head-bangy moments in the dodgy-designed inversions at the beginning but after that evil batwing inversion it's smooth as glass, the vertical loop is probably one of the best I've been through and the corkscrews are cool. So, in my opinion, it's a great coaster let down by a few bashes to the head near the beginning of the ride.
We then wanted to make sure Benin got all the other coaster credits (so we could spend the Sunday relaxed). However on our way over to the bobsled coaster we got side-tracked by the Gaule village. It was awesome and I got to meet both Asterix and Obilix!
The village is awesome and is set on the character's home town. We found some random characters running and then a sound of an electric guitar came out of nowhere. Another one of the main characters was on top of a tree house playing with a fake guitar. He then put it down and played his little harp instrument badly and then he disappeared. It was so random but it gave the area such an awesome atmosphere, as if you had walked into the comics.
You can walk round some random huts and they are all heavily themed. One had some catfish...
LOLz
The above hut had a screen with a character on it, you shout at it and the character reacts, this was very popular and was very amusing. The whole area just had a great buzz and I think the adults were enjoying it more than the kids
We then came out by La Trace du Hourra, the bobsled coaster. The queue was very long but it was ok and some amusement was had at 'bubblegum mountain'. The ride itself is quite boring with the only decent bit being at the end where all the theming is.
The next coaster on the list was round the corner, hidden amongst all the trees. It was weird because it actually had quite a queue but it's still an enjoyable little coaster, the first drop is actually pretty good.
Much to my amusement we then went round to the little little coaster near the village. I think it's cool with it's tiny little lift hill and the fun little air time hills. You also go round 4 times
Opposite is Le Grande Splatch! This had no queue compared to when we had passes it earlier in the day so we thought "why not?". Didn't know what to expect, all we knew was that it is a big boat ride with a double-drop at the end. After a little wait (the queue moved a lot quicker than we expected) we were on. We went up the lift hill and noticed the little drop round the corner. The drop was fun and didn't get anyone wet (maybe the peeps at the front but I couldn't tell). We then gently meander round and we all hear this cool sound effect of like a cartoon boulder flying through the sky and then 'BOOM' a massive explosion of water right next to the boat that got everyone soaked. It was awesome, one of the best effects on a water ride I've ever experienced. We continued round and sounds of arrows flying through the air and then shoots of water going over the boat happened. This then happened again a bit further along and then that cartoon-like noise happened and there was a sense of panic amongst everyone on the boat, the tension was hilarious. Then all of a sudden there was about 4 or 5 explosions from the water, it was epic. Then we went round the corner and had the big double-drop. It was such a great ride which was just awesome fun.
Time was going by quite fast now and so we headed over to see what the queue for the Icarus-themed coaster was like. It was short so we joined it. It is a very random coaster with some heavy brakes. There are moments on the drops of amusement and the station and queueline are very well themed with hints of comedy in there.
However this was to be the last ride of the day. We made our way to the entrance area, had a little look in the shops, collected our big bags from the concierge place and then headed over to the coach.
Thanks for reading. I shall continue with the Saturday evening and Sunday soon...
Friday 11th June 2010
After finishing work at 9pm I got on the Victoria Line down to Victoria station. Upon entering the main train station I met up with Benin and Patrick and we continued on to the coach station. We checked in and awaited our coach. After some faff and everyone getting confused about the location of our coach we finally boarded and sat at the back of the coach. It was hard to get comfortable with the lack of leg room and the heat being so intense, didn't help that the driver didn't turn the engine on till last minute so we didn't get any air con to help cool us down.
It reached 10:30 and the coach finally left the station. The journey was boring and quite uncomfortable. I think we annoyed a lot of the other passengers with our insistence on talking till after the tunnel. Exiting the coach during the tunnel was also an annoyance as half the other passengers decided to sleep and sprawl themselves all over the place making it hard to walk past without hitting them. Biggest highlight of this journey was stopping before entering the tunnel for toilet times, we found a screen playing Finding Nemo so we stood and watched that for a few minutes
Another highlight from the journey was exiting the train and with all the mist and lights it looked like we entered the World of Tron which was uber-cool. Sleep was then had after our initial shock of coolness.Saturday 12th June 2010
When I awoke we were driving into the coach station in Paris (Galleni). We got off the coach, happy to be off the thing and ventured down into the Metro station. We purchased our two-day metro tickets and headed down to the train. After a few changes we finally arrived at the station outside the Louvre museum (Palais-Royal station). It was about 7:30am yet we were awake and happy to be in Paris with Asterix times just a couple of hours away.
We were hungry so we opted for McDonalds breakfast (it was one of about 3 places open). Due to my tiredness I ordered in the most retarded way possible and made a complete fool of myself, oh wells. The breakfast was nice and I loved my little selection of pastries.
After now full we began our search for the coach. With the very cryptic clues from the French version of the Asterix website we navigated our way through the Louvre shopping area and found the coach area. We purchased our very expensive coach tickets and went round the corner to await coach times. I took the opportunity of this coach journey (about 40 mins) to get some extra sleep in.
I awoke just as the coach was turning off the motorway into the road down to Asterix, that was some amazing timing by myself
Now in France a Saturday is a school day however we seemed to find the one Saturday all the schools go to Parc Asterix! We counted about 8 coaches or school trips (a lot of them actually being for older year groups). This was not a good sign so we opted to expect the worst and just relax. This was hard once getting into the park as the scene after the gates were dropped for the park opening looked like this...
Busy times indeed. However seeing Asterix's little smile on top of the mountain made things all ok...
There was one ride I wanted to start our day with (as we somehow missed it back in April) was the Vekoma madhouse. It didn't have a queue so it seemed like a great idea. We queued up and in no time at all we were entering the first room.
Don't read the next few paragraphs if you don't want the attraction spoiled before you go
We were a tad confused when we entered the first room. We were greeted by a small village where we had to look into individual windows where our picture was taken and then our photos turned into something that looks like characters in the comics. It was random but cool, then we continued into the next room and our faces lit up with joy and amusement. On one wall your photo appears on a large screen, on the left the wall is full of Roman legionnaires and your face appears on their bodies and on the right wall these legionnaires with your face on march along. It is so amazing and so well done, it's also hilarious and just gets all 50 guests into a great mood.
You can play spot peep in the above photo
So on to the next room. We enter a small tent and are told to look up at this balcony. The curtains open and this fantastic animatronic of Cesar appears who goes on to talk about something in French. He was so awesome though and was even better than most of the animatronics in the Disney parks. The room then rotates and reveals Asterix and Obilix on a screen. They go on to say something in French and then Obilix punches the screen, the platform shakes (which is awesome) and then rotates round to a door.
The door leads to a corridor which smelt rather funny. It wasn't till we entered the next room that we identified it as chlorine. The next room is this amazing fountain area. Some music then starts up and four women are singing while washing something, they are projected on to waterfalls of water in each corner. It is so cool. Then the annoying character that I can't remember the name of appears on a wall, tries to sing with them but it's so bad that everything goes mental and water is going all over the place, it's so epic and all the water effects would make Amanda Thompson wet herself with excitement.
It all calms down and then we entered the final part of the attraction, the madhouse. The theme of the room is of a Roman ship which is really cool. There are screens in the ceiling and walls to show you what's going on outside the ship. Basically Asterix and Obilix come along and spin you down into the depths of the sea, an octopus then spins you back up to the surface and the ride ends. It's absolutely amazing and the effects are so much better than Hex. This attraction makes Hex look unthemed and cheap. It's just so awesome, full of humour, cool effects and is just fantastic fun. LOVE IT!
Spoilers over
Well, how the hell could the day get any better? We had just been on the best dark ride ever and the park is really busy, what do we choose next? Oh yeah...TON OF AIR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The queue looked horrendous and according to the little signpost the queue from where we were would take 90 mins. Benin was excited about riding Zeus...
And meerkat was spited by Zeus, maybe another time Mr Meerkat
The queue ended up being about an hour yet the queue felt like 30 mins. This was helped by long conversations about, I dunno, life. It was also helped by the absolutely bizarre interaction with the group of Parisian teenagers in front of us. Every now and then they would ask us about certain words and about us. However I did get the feeling they mainly focused on me which was a great concern and huge confusion and randomness when one of them started yelling French that I did not understand. The guys reaction when I said I was from London was amusing though, but overall it was just random and awkward.
Anyways, Zeus times happened and just as I remembered from April, it was epic. Patrick and Benin seemed to agree too. The idea was to then walk round to Goudurix and ride that. However when we arrived there was a ridiculously long queue. The same went for the dark ride and swinging ship near it too. We decided to walk through the medieval area through to the Victorian area. The park is so well themed and in one part of the Medieval area they had one guy putting together some stain glass windows and another guy doing pottery which was really cool to see.
We arrived at Oxygenarium, a random spinny dingy ride. The queue wasn't too bad and the ride is great fun, getting some insane spinning on the way down. It seems a shame that there isn't a big splash at the bottom of the drop but it's quite nice to relax after all that spinning.
We were hungry so food was the next option. The choice in the area was sandwiches or hot dogs. Neither seemed to appealing to me (I was starving and wanting something cooked) but I opted for the hot dog, as did Benin. Patrick went for the sandwich option. The food was nice but with the pricing being very similar to DLP it was a little bit costly.
We had about 10-15 mins before the big stunt show started and as it was in the area we opted to go for that. I had no idea what to expect and it really blew me away. It's such a great show full of comedy, amazing stunts and a fun little story. The stage is really on an epic scale with it being a dockyard. A train comes out on 'stage' and the boat explodes and falls backwards, it's insane. There are loads of explosions, vehicles and as previously mentioned, excellent stunts. I was just so impressed with this show and we decided that it must be seen for a second time on the second day.
After that epic show we headed back over to Goudurix to hope that the queue had gone down. Go down it did, it went from being about 2 hours to about an hour and with a two train operation the queue moved quickly. Most peeps tend to moan about the roughness of this Vekoma looper and in my opinion it isn't. It has some very head-bangy moments in the dodgy-designed inversions at the beginning but after that evil batwing inversion it's smooth as glass, the vertical loop is probably one of the best I've been through and the corkscrews are cool. So, in my opinion, it's a great coaster let down by a few bashes to the head near the beginning of the ride.
We then wanted to make sure Benin got all the other coaster credits (so we could spend the Sunday relaxed). However on our way over to the bobsled coaster we got side-tracked by the Gaule village. It was awesome and I got to meet both Asterix and Obilix!
The village is awesome and is set on the character's home town. We found some random characters running and then a sound of an electric guitar came out of nowhere. Another one of the main characters was on top of a tree house playing with a fake guitar. He then put it down and played his little harp instrument badly and then he disappeared. It was so random but it gave the area such an awesome atmosphere, as if you had walked into the comics.
You can walk round some random huts and they are all heavily themed. One had some catfish...
LOLz
The above hut had a screen with a character on it, you shout at it and the character reacts, this was very popular and was very amusing. The whole area just had a great buzz and I think the adults were enjoying it more than the kids
We then came out by La Trace du Hourra, the bobsled coaster. The queue was very long but it was ok and some amusement was had at 'bubblegum mountain'. The ride itself is quite boring with the only decent bit being at the end where all the theming is.
The next coaster on the list was round the corner, hidden amongst all the trees. It was weird because it actually had quite a queue but it's still an enjoyable little coaster, the first drop is actually pretty good.
Much to my amusement we then went round to the little little coaster near the village. I think it's cool with it's tiny little lift hill and the fun little air time hills. You also go round 4 times
Opposite is Le Grande Splatch! This had no queue compared to when we had passes it earlier in the day so we thought "why not?". Didn't know what to expect, all we knew was that it is a big boat ride with a double-drop at the end. After a little wait (the queue moved a lot quicker than we expected) we were on. We went up the lift hill and noticed the little drop round the corner. The drop was fun and didn't get anyone wet (maybe the peeps at the front but I couldn't tell). We then gently meander round and we all hear this cool sound effect of like a cartoon boulder flying through the sky and then 'BOOM' a massive explosion of water right next to the boat that got everyone soaked. It was awesome, one of the best effects on a water ride I've ever experienced. We continued round and sounds of arrows flying through the air and then shoots of water going over the boat happened. This then happened again a bit further along and then that cartoon-like noise happened and there was a sense of panic amongst everyone on the boat, the tension was hilarious. Then all of a sudden there was about 4 or 5 explosions from the water, it was epic. Then we went round the corner and had the big double-drop. It was such a great ride which was just awesome fun.
Time was going by quite fast now and so we headed over to see what the queue for the Icarus-themed coaster was like. It was short so we joined it. It is a very random coaster with some heavy brakes. There are moments on the drops of amusement and the station and queueline are very well themed with hints of comedy in there.
However this was to be the last ride of the day. We made our way to the entrance area, had a little look in the shops, collected our big bags from the concierge place and then headed over to the coach.
Thanks for reading. I shall continue with the Saturday evening and Sunday soon...
, entertainment 
