Prologue
After purchasing a Plopsa fun card back in April, Nic and I were adamant that at some point this year we'd try and get all of the Plospa creds. A week beforehand Nic said "I have a silly idea, ferry is cheap next weekend" and instead of saying "yes Nic, that is a silly idea" I made sure it happened. So low and behold on Friday 5th June I caught the train to Dover after finishing work (which could have been a disaster as it's staying-late season for my project at the mo) where I met up with Nic and we proceeded to make our way onto our ferry. We were one of the first on so we made sure we grabbed one of the large sofa bed things....
The ferry journey wasn't too bad. We then proceeded on to our hotel for the evening. The Quality hotel in Dunkirk. There were some business types getting drunk at the bar when we arrived but we checked in very quickly and went straight to bed in our stripy room...
Saturday 6th
Some much needed quality sleep later we got ourselves ready, checked out and made our over two hours journey up to Hasselt in Belgium. This is where we met up with Thom. We then drove on to Plopsa Indoor Hasselt. It's next door to a large arena and the whole place was pretty quiet. I kinda knew what to expect but I still thought there would be more to do than there is. Still, I bet the locals love it, a place to make the kids happy for an hour or two at the weekend.
Find the climbing enclosure thing
We then got to what we were really there for....
It had some nice theming around it. The ride is also pretty good fun.
We decided to do one or two of the other attractions. First up Thom and I rode the spinning boat thing. It span very fast which being indoors just made it more intense. We both came off very dizzy.
Next up we all did the spinning drop tower thing which was excellent. These little drop towers are full of so much airtime, they're amazing.
Obviously we couldn't leave without doing the big slide...
We then left Plopsa Indoor and headed to the middle of nowhere for Plopsa Coo. It took us over an hour to get there and some of the roads we had to go down were ridiculous. The set up was really odd and really reminded me of like a mix between Lake Compounce and Knoebels with it's woodland setting and massive hills and the like. It really is a beautiful location. Oddly you have to get wristbands to get on attractions because its one of those places where it's quite easy for anyone to just waltz in.
We decided to do the Bobsled thing first as it didn't have much of a queue. We were surprised at how this one was set up with just one lift to the top and then you have to carry your bob thing over to one of two runs. It's really high up but I can't find out how high. I managed to absolutely belt it down the course and it was pretty great (not usually a fan of these attractions). Unfortunately Nic and Thom went on the other run and got stuck behind some burdenous Mother and Daughter who kept braking throughout the course. I had to wait quite a few minutes before I saw them reach the bottom which shows how much of a speed difference there was.
We decided to ride Vicky the cred next which is a Gerst spinner. We aimed to get a good spin but most of the course we didn't spin much, it was a really nice, different, layout though. Then right at the end we started to spin like mad and didn't stop until half way through the station, it was a lot of spinning.
As you can see, the station theming is fab
As we could smell it from the ride we decided to grab some food in the form of sausages in a roll. It was tasty. We also caught some of the character dance shows which the kids seemed to be loving. Some of the parents were also loving it, especially when the Kabouter Plop dance was played, most people there knew the dance off by heart.
Food consumed we decided to take a more gentle ride before grabbing the other cred. So we went on the huge chairlift up the huge hill. Once again I can't find any info on how high it is. This is also the reason it reminds me of Lake Compounce apart from this one you get off at the top and there's a big tower you can go up if you weren't happy about being high enough already.
We saw quite a few para gliders flying about
Biggest waterfall in Belgium
The view at the top was absolutely stunning. We then went to make our way back down. Annoyingly because only certain chairs can have kids sitting on them we were randomly pushed through in an unexpected turn which meant there wasn't much time to prepare getting on and I failed at life. So I ended up with a few scratches on the back of my legs like an idiot. FML. It looked more nasty than it actually was so I felt like this for the rest of the afternoon....
Thom wanted to go on the starflyer so we did that while Nic got ice cream. I find these rides so relaxing, helps when the view is as good as the one at Coo. It was then past the construction of the new water slide thing (which is looking amazing) and over to the other cred. It's such a bizarre ride. From the seat design (I think this was my first encountering ones like this) and the ride layout, everything about it was just unusual.
Love that it horizontally loops around the log flume drop.
Yet again the station design was amazing. I mean, theming wood to look like wood is dedication...
The restraint was a proper wtf moment
We then made our way back to the car, slightly later than planned. We then drove onwards for a little cred run. Due to lots of burdenous road diversions due to construction the satnav had a trantrum and we had lots of agro trying to get to our next destination, Valkenier. This meant that by the time we arrived the park had shut. Now in a mad dash we made our way over to Kinderstad Heerlen. The woman on the counter was puzzled by our late arrival and determination to ride the cred. Was hoping she'd let us just run through but we had to pay <//3
Kinderstad is essentially a giant warehouse converted into a kids play center with a random cred hiding at the very end of it.
Yay for a +1. It sent us round twice which was slightly annoying as we still had one more place to attempt to get to. We were cutting it close we had to cancel attempting Mondo verde and Rocolinos was going to be tight. It was all going ok until more road construction meant the satnav had more panic and we went around in circles resulting in us giving up. No idea where we were but we did stumble upon a little fair with a spinning coaster. Thom and Nic had a go...
We then headed onwards to our hotel on the outskirts of Cologne. It was a fairly old Hotel B&B which was still going through a refurb. We got one of the old rooms which was meh. On arriving in the area Nic and I had a "OMFG!" moment when we realised we'd been there before. Not only that but we were telling Thom about that trip and the tales from this specific area only hours prior to our arrival. It was kinda amazing. Like, the below picture is of where a tree/bush once stood which was overgrown all over that little bit of road, Richard drove through said tree/bush and Sue followed, we were sad that it had gone but still highly amused by the situation that we recognised it.
Our hotel room has a staircase up to a second room...
Outside our hotel was a Burger King and a fairly new American diner. The American diner just happened to have an old American car event going on which was fab and the menu looked great so we headed in. The theming was brilliant and the staff were mainly confused of us not speaking German but the food was very tasty. The staff were also obsessed with giving everyone these little sweets which was random.
After noms Thom went to watch the football and Nic and I attempted to get into the city centre. We'd annoyingly missed a tram and the next one was 30 mins away. So we waited. It was quite an easy journey to make, it was just annoying that they were so infrequent. On my trip to Cologne last year Patrick and I randomly discovered a horrifying yet brilliant pub filled with old things and animatronics. I just had to show Nic so that was our first stop. The animatronic band were constantly on and the pub was rammed with people. The atmosphere was surreal and just amazing, loads of people were singing along to the band and everyone was just merry and enjoying the unusual settings. It was fab. Next time I go I'm totally booking a table as I did feel a bit in the way without one.
We then went on a very small tour of some of the city sights. I go into a lot more detail in my trip report from last year if you want to know more clicky[/i] - (I've just seen that the images have been removed, probably Facebook changing the photo links. The cretins. Sorry)
Getting back to the hotel was a faff with more tram woes. Still, Google translate helped us make some sort of chaotic sense of what to do and we made it back to the hotel by like some awful time.
Sunday 7th June
We awoke at a fairly reasonable hour and then got ourselves ready before we got in the car and went to PHANTASIALAND!!! It's one of my favourite theme parks in the World, its just so mental. We got there for just after opening so we could make sure we got everything done. One of the first things we did was goon over the beautiful Chiapas and the craziness of Taron....
I think Phantasialand's proposal for Taron was "we love headchoppers, lets have all of the close encounters". I still haven't got a clue what is going on in half of the area. The massive curved concrete block is my current "wtf" - just what the hell is it? Is it a tunnel? I'm so freaking excited by it all.
We were basically in the park from about 9 and rides slowly open from about 9:30 onwards. We decided to queue up for Maus which opened at 9:30. We were on the second train of the day. It's such a fab ride and still better than Toy Story mania.
Upon exiting the ride we bumped into one of the park's many dragons, this one violated our ears...
We then went over to Black Mamba where we got on fairly quickly despite the burdenous one train operations. It's still one of the best B&M inverts. I find it extremely forceful and everything seems so random and erratic. Love it.
The rest of the park was now starting to open up so we went over to Hotel Tartuff. On the way we watched Talocan doing its thing.
Hotel Tartuff is still very fun, it is by far the best fun house ever made. The theming is just insane, the level of detail throughout is just astounding. Next up was Winjas Fear and Force. We lucked out and there wasn't much of a queue. We started off with Force which is very fun but we didn't manage to really spin. Fear we managed to get more of a spin going. Both are fantastic examples of how far Phantasialand are willing to go to make a normal ride something more extraordinary.
On Nic's previous visit she was spited by Temple of the Nighthawk (earning it the reasonable title, Temple of the Spitehawk). So to say she was quite excited to finally get the cred would have been an understatement.
It's a fun ride which does go on for ages. It's nice to have the new music actually audible while on the ride. I do hope they rip this section out of the park in a few years though as they could clearly do better with the large space these days. Still, it is a fun family coaster. Somehow in the same building is Hollywood tour which we just had to show Nic. It's aged very badly but you have to give them kudos for the sheer scale and effort put into the ride back in the day.
We then made our way over to the Mystery area of the park. On our way we caught the Chinese acrobatic show where a man on a unicycle was flipping some cone type things around. We then proceeded to join the queue for River Quest! One of the best rapid rides in the World, it never fails to put a smile on my face, it's just pure entertainment. It's like the russian roulette of water rides. The way the boat spins as it falls down those slopes at speed towards the water is just utter terror, no one knows who is going to get absolutely soaked. On this occasion it was some poor girl who got the worst of it when a literal wave kinda crept over the top of the boat and dowsed her, it was hilarious.
To dry off we then went on Mystery Castle. Yet another perfect ride and the sheer scale of theming is insane.
Feng Ju Palace, the park's mad house, was next up. Yet another ride Nic had never experienced before. The story is weird and the effects aren't the best but the soundtrack is pretty good. Still a let down when you know what Phantasialand are usually capable of.
It was then over to Geister Rikscha, a Phantom Manor inspired dark ride themed to Asian culture. It is another very dated dark ride for the park and it would be amazing to see what they could transform it into if they were to do it now. It's also very long and has lots of effects which is pretty impressive.
Thom and I then rode Talocan. Gawd it is so intense and absolutely ruthless in the way it just keeps on spinning. The pinnacle of this ride type by a country mile, with a great soundtrack and with effects in the form of smoke, water and fire it is just an absolute winner. We then grabbed some food in the form of pizza. It was ok, nothing to write home about.
We then opted to watch the next performance of the updated big stage show, Musarteum. It used to be a magic show headed up by magician Christian Farla (or something like that) but he left the show at the end of last year so the park have come up with this new show. Now, I was under the impression that this was still going to have the same elements of the previous show (Seven), so same cast and still had magic involved. Well, that's not exactly what we got. It's basically the premise of Night at the Museum but this time it's set off by some burden touching a piece of art *rolls eyes*. It's very odd and they've worked in the European show tradition of tight revealing costumes, spinning on some drapes and pointlessly walking around the stage in a sparkly costume. There was also a man balancing on some tubes which was actually kinda tense, not helped by his stage partner watching in horror as if shes seen it go horribly wrong on more than one occasion. Still, it was still better than a lot of park entertainment.
Thom and I then decided to ride the chairswing because it's fab. The sensation that you might get wet from the fountains just below your feet is quite exciting. Afterwards we headed over to Chiapas which was FINALLY OPEN! It had been shut for most of the day due to technical issues (they are having a right mare with the restraint system which needs to be totally designed). So we grabbed some ice cream and joined the horrible looking 90 minute queue.
Fairly shortly after joining it broke down again, burdenous. After about 15-20 minutes it was back open though and we were moving through the queueline again. I managed to capture just how much of a burden the restraints are being though, the staff are very efficient but they've had to close the single rider queue because this is the current situation....
That is 3 of the 6 seats empty due to faulty restraints. I hope Intamin are working on a fix because this is getting silly. Still we were finally on the ride and boy it was so good. That final drop is just all of the ridiculousness. Everything about the ride is really fun, from the way it has been weaved through Colorado Adventure, to the crazy turntables and drops. It's just a very fun water ride with a very fun soundtrack.
After our Chiapas adventure we decided to have another go on Black Mamba. This time we waited for front row. It was annoyingly still only running one train. To be fair to them though the park wasn't really busy enough to require a second train. Aside from front row it was only a one train wait. Yet again it was an excellent ride and anyone that says Mamba is a bad ride or nowhere near as good as the other inverts is just wrong.
We then went over to the main shop where we caught most of the main end of the day show, they've really changed it, all of the big dragon things have gone (probably because that square was a nightmare to navigate them to/from) and been replaced by this large ball thing...
It was then back to the car after a long but extremely satisfying day at one of the best theme parks in the World. We dropped Thom off at the nearby train station and made the very long drive down to the ferry. We stopped for food on the way, we found a motorway service place with a Quick. Quick wasn't very quick though and we ended up 30 minutes behind schedule so we made a panic dash the rest of the way and missed our ferry check in by 3 minutes! We were put on the next ferry (an hour wait) and we had to sit there watching the ferry we should have been on loading. It was so frustrating not being able to just go and drive on to it.
So after that awfulness we ended up getting back to mine at like 2:30am. I had work in the morning. Fun.
Well, that's it for this report now. Thanks for reading.
After purchasing a Plopsa fun card back in April, Nic and I were adamant that at some point this year we'd try and get all of the Plospa creds. A week beforehand Nic said "I have a silly idea, ferry is cheap next weekend" and instead of saying "yes Nic, that is a silly idea" I made sure it happened. So low and behold on Friday 5th June I caught the train to Dover after finishing work (which could have been a disaster as it's staying-late season for my project at the mo) where I met up with Nic and we proceeded to make our way onto our ferry. We were one of the first on so we made sure we grabbed one of the large sofa bed things....
The ferry journey wasn't too bad. We then proceeded on to our hotel for the evening. The Quality hotel in Dunkirk. There were some business types getting drunk at the bar when we arrived but we checked in very quickly and went straight to bed in our stripy room...
Saturday 6th
Some much needed quality sleep later we got ourselves ready, checked out and made our over two hours journey up to Hasselt in Belgium. This is where we met up with Thom. We then drove on to Plopsa Indoor Hasselt. It's next door to a large arena and the whole place was pretty quiet. I kinda knew what to expect but I still thought there would be more to do than there is. Still, I bet the locals love it, a place to make the kids happy for an hour or two at the weekend.
Find the climbing enclosure thing
We then got to what we were really there for....
It had some nice theming around it. The ride is also pretty good fun.
We decided to do one or two of the other attractions. First up Thom and I rode the spinning boat thing. It span very fast which being indoors just made it more intense. We both came off very dizzy.
Next up we all did the spinning drop tower thing which was excellent. These little drop towers are full of so much airtime, they're amazing.
Obviously we couldn't leave without doing the big slide...
We then left Plopsa Indoor and headed to the middle of nowhere for Plopsa Coo. It took us over an hour to get there and some of the roads we had to go down were ridiculous. The set up was really odd and really reminded me of like a mix between Lake Compounce and Knoebels with it's woodland setting and massive hills and the like. It really is a beautiful location. Oddly you have to get wristbands to get on attractions because its one of those places where it's quite easy for anyone to just waltz in.
We decided to do the Bobsled thing first as it didn't have much of a queue. We were surprised at how this one was set up with just one lift to the top and then you have to carry your bob thing over to one of two runs. It's really high up but I can't find out how high. I managed to absolutely belt it down the course and it was pretty great (not usually a fan of these attractions). Unfortunately Nic and Thom went on the other run and got stuck behind some burdenous Mother and Daughter who kept braking throughout the course. I had to wait quite a few minutes before I saw them reach the bottom which shows how much of a speed difference there was.
We decided to ride Vicky the cred next which is a Gerst spinner. We aimed to get a good spin but most of the course we didn't spin much, it was a really nice, different, layout though. Then right at the end we started to spin like mad and didn't stop until half way through the station, it was a lot of spinning.
As you can see, the station theming is fab
As we could smell it from the ride we decided to grab some food in the form of sausages in a roll. It was tasty. We also caught some of the character dance shows which the kids seemed to be loving. Some of the parents were also loving it, especially when the Kabouter Plop dance was played, most people there knew the dance off by heart.
Food consumed we decided to take a more gentle ride before grabbing the other cred. So we went on the huge chairlift up the huge hill. Once again I can't find any info on how high it is. This is also the reason it reminds me of Lake Compounce apart from this one you get off at the top and there's a big tower you can go up if you weren't happy about being high enough already.
We saw quite a few para gliders flying about
Biggest waterfall in Belgium
The view at the top was absolutely stunning. We then went to make our way back down. Annoyingly because only certain chairs can have kids sitting on them we were randomly pushed through in an unexpected turn which meant there wasn't much time to prepare getting on and I failed at life. So I ended up with a few scratches on the back of my legs like an idiot. FML. It looked more nasty than it actually was so I felt like this for the rest of the afternoon....
Thom wanted to go on the starflyer so we did that while Nic got ice cream. I find these rides so relaxing, helps when the view is as good as the one at Coo. It was then past the construction of the new water slide thing (which is looking amazing) and over to the other cred. It's such a bizarre ride. From the seat design (I think this was my first encountering ones like this) and the ride layout, everything about it was just unusual.
Love that it horizontally loops around the log flume drop.
Yet again the station design was amazing. I mean, theming wood to look like wood is dedication...
The restraint was a proper wtf moment
We then made our way back to the car, slightly later than planned. We then drove onwards for a little cred run. Due to lots of burdenous road diversions due to construction the satnav had a trantrum and we had lots of agro trying to get to our next destination, Valkenier. This meant that by the time we arrived the park had shut. Now in a mad dash we made our way over to Kinderstad Heerlen. The woman on the counter was puzzled by our late arrival and determination to ride the cred. Was hoping she'd let us just run through but we had to pay <//3
Kinderstad is essentially a giant warehouse converted into a kids play center with a random cred hiding at the very end of it.
Yay for a +1. It sent us round twice which was slightly annoying as we still had one more place to attempt to get to. We were cutting it close we had to cancel attempting Mondo verde and Rocolinos was going to be tight. It was all going ok until more road construction meant the satnav had more panic and we went around in circles resulting in us giving up. No idea where we were but we did stumble upon a little fair with a spinning coaster. Thom and Nic had a go...
We then headed onwards to our hotel on the outskirts of Cologne. It was a fairly old Hotel B&B which was still going through a refurb. We got one of the old rooms which was meh. On arriving in the area Nic and I had a "OMFG!" moment when we realised we'd been there before. Not only that but we were telling Thom about that trip and the tales from this specific area only hours prior to our arrival. It was kinda amazing. Like, the below picture is of where a tree/bush once stood which was overgrown all over that little bit of road, Richard drove through said tree/bush and Sue followed, we were sad that it had gone but still highly amused by the situation that we recognised it.
Our hotel room has a staircase up to a second room...
Outside our hotel was a Burger King and a fairly new American diner. The American diner just happened to have an old American car event going on which was fab and the menu looked great so we headed in. The theming was brilliant and the staff were mainly confused of us not speaking German but the food was very tasty. The staff were also obsessed with giving everyone these little sweets which was random.
After noms Thom went to watch the football and Nic and I attempted to get into the city centre. We'd annoyingly missed a tram and the next one was 30 mins away. So we waited. It was quite an easy journey to make, it was just annoying that they were so infrequent. On my trip to Cologne last year Patrick and I randomly discovered a horrifying yet brilliant pub filled with old things and animatronics. I just had to show Nic so that was our first stop. The animatronic band were constantly on and the pub was rammed with people. The atmosphere was surreal and just amazing, loads of people were singing along to the band and everyone was just merry and enjoying the unusual settings. It was fab. Next time I go I'm totally booking a table as I did feel a bit in the way without one.
We then went on a very small tour of some of the city sights. I go into a lot more detail in my trip report from last year if you want to know more clicky[/i] - (I've just seen that the images have been removed, probably Facebook changing the photo links. The cretins. Sorry)
Getting back to the hotel was a faff with more tram woes. Still, Google translate helped us make some sort of chaotic sense of what to do and we made it back to the hotel by like some awful time.
Sunday 7th June
We awoke at a fairly reasonable hour and then got ourselves ready before we got in the car and went to PHANTASIALAND!!! It's one of my favourite theme parks in the World, its just so mental. We got there for just after opening so we could make sure we got everything done. One of the first things we did was goon over the beautiful Chiapas and the craziness of Taron....
I think Phantasialand's proposal for Taron was "we love headchoppers, lets have all of the close encounters". I still haven't got a clue what is going on in half of the area. The massive curved concrete block is my current "wtf" - just what the hell is it? Is it a tunnel? I'm so freaking excited by it all.
We were basically in the park from about 9 and rides slowly open from about 9:30 onwards. We decided to queue up for Maus which opened at 9:30. We were on the second train of the day. It's such a fab ride and still better than Toy Story mania.
Upon exiting the ride we bumped into one of the park's many dragons, this one violated our ears...
We then went over to Black Mamba where we got on fairly quickly despite the burdenous one train operations. It's still one of the best B&M inverts. I find it extremely forceful and everything seems so random and erratic. Love it.
The rest of the park was now starting to open up so we went over to Hotel Tartuff. On the way we watched Talocan doing its thing.
Hotel Tartuff is still very fun, it is by far the best fun house ever made. The theming is just insane, the level of detail throughout is just astounding. Next up was Winjas Fear and Force. We lucked out and there wasn't much of a queue. We started off with Force which is very fun but we didn't manage to really spin. Fear we managed to get more of a spin going. Both are fantastic examples of how far Phantasialand are willing to go to make a normal ride something more extraordinary.
On Nic's previous visit she was spited by Temple of the Nighthawk (earning it the reasonable title, Temple of the Spitehawk). So to say she was quite excited to finally get the cred would have been an understatement.
It's a fun ride which does go on for ages. It's nice to have the new music actually audible while on the ride. I do hope they rip this section out of the park in a few years though as they could clearly do better with the large space these days. Still, it is a fun family coaster. Somehow in the same building is Hollywood tour which we just had to show Nic. It's aged very badly but you have to give them kudos for the sheer scale and effort put into the ride back in the day.
We then made our way over to the Mystery area of the park. On our way we caught the Chinese acrobatic show where a man on a unicycle was flipping some cone type things around. We then proceeded to join the queue for River Quest! One of the best rapid rides in the World, it never fails to put a smile on my face, it's just pure entertainment. It's like the russian roulette of water rides. The way the boat spins as it falls down those slopes at speed towards the water is just utter terror, no one knows who is going to get absolutely soaked. On this occasion it was some poor girl who got the worst of it when a literal wave kinda crept over the top of the boat and dowsed her, it was hilarious.
To dry off we then went on Mystery Castle. Yet another perfect ride and the sheer scale of theming is insane.
Feng Ju Palace, the park's mad house, was next up. Yet another ride Nic had never experienced before. The story is weird and the effects aren't the best but the soundtrack is pretty good. Still a let down when you know what Phantasialand are usually capable of.
It was then over to Geister Rikscha, a Phantom Manor inspired dark ride themed to Asian culture. It is another very dated dark ride for the park and it would be amazing to see what they could transform it into if they were to do it now. It's also very long and has lots of effects which is pretty impressive.
Thom and I then rode Talocan. Gawd it is so intense and absolutely ruthless in the way it just keeps on spinning. The pinnacle of this ride type by a country mile, with a great soundtrack and with effects in the form of smoke, water and fire it is just an absolute winner. We then grabbed some food in the form of pizza. It was ok, nothing to write home about.
We then opted to watch the next performance of the updated big stage show, Musarteum. It used to be a magic show headed up by magician Christian Farla (or something like that) but he left the show at the end of last year so the park have come up with this new show. Now, I was under the impression that this was still going to have the same elements of the previous show (Seven), so same cast and still had magic involved. Well, that's not exactly what we got. It's basically the premise of Night at the Museum but this time it's set off by some burden touching a piece of art *rolls eyes*. It's very odd and they've worked in the European show tradition of tight revealing costumes, spinning on some drapes and pointlessly walking around the stage in a sparkly costume. There was also a man balancing on some tubes which was actually kinda tense, not helped by his stage partner watching in horror as if shes seen it go horribly wrong on more than one occasion. Still, it was still better than a lot of park entertainment.
Thom and I then decided to ride the chairswing because it's fab. The sensation that you might get wet from the fountains just below your feet is quite exciting. Afterwards we headed over to Chiapas which was FINALLY OPEN! It had been shut for most of the day due to technical issues (they are having a right mare with the restraint system which needs to be totally designed). So we grabbed some ice cream and joined the horrible looking 90 minute queue.
Fairly shortly after joining it broke down again, burdenous. After about 15-20 minutes it was back open though and we were moving through the queueline again. I managed to capture just how much of a burden the restraints are being though, the staff are very efficient but they've had to close the single rider queue because this is the current situation....
That is 3 of the 6 seats empty due to faulty restraints. I hope Intamin are working on a fix because this is getting silly. Still we were finally on the ride and boy it was so good. That final drop is just all of the ridiculousness. Everything about the ride is really fun, from the way it has been weaved through Colorado Adventure, to the crazy turntables and drops. It's just a very fun water ride with a very fun soundtrack.
After our Chiapas adventure we decided to have another go on Black Mamba. This time we waited for front row. It was annoyingly still only running one train. To be fair to them though the park wasn't really busy enough to require a second train. Aside from front row it was only a one train wait. Yet again it was an excellent ride and anyone that says Mamba is a bad ride or nowhere near as good as the other inverts is just wrong.
We then went over to the main shop where we caught most of the main end of the day show, they've really changed it, all of the big dragon things have gone (probably because that square was a nightmare to navigate them to/from) and been replaced by this large ball thing...
It was then back to the car after a long but extremely satisfying day at one of the best theme parks in the World. We dropped Thom off at the nearby train station and made the very long drive down to the ferry. We stopped for food on the way, we found a motorway service place with a Quick. Quick wasn't very quick though and we ended up 30 minutes behind schedule so we made a panic dash the rest of the way and missed our ferry check in by 3 minutes! We were put on the next ferry (an hour wait) and we had to sit there watching the ferry we should have been on loading. It was so frustrating not being able to just go and drive on to it.
So after that awfulness we ended up getting back to mine at like 2:30am. I had work in the morning. Fun.
Well, that's it for this report now. Thanks for reading.
