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Plopsaland de Panne | The Ride to Happiness | Mack Xtreme Spinning Coaster | 2021

I'm curious what about the train stalling leads to a two month downtime.

Sounds either like BS, or there was something more to it than just a stall...
 
It depends on what their objective is, but if they want to make sure this situation never occurs again, it becomes a little challenging. The first two options that come to mind are 1) trying to launch the train faster, or 2) installing a kicker tire on top of the hill.

Option 1 gets complicated because it will obviously result in the train going faster through the rest of the course, so they would then need to add a trim somewhere. Track then needs to be modified to receive the trim and the whole thing needs to be wired, reprogrammed, and tested.

Similarly, Option 2 gets complicated because the track needs to be heavily modified, if not outright replaced, to include a drive tire and motor. It then needs to be wired, programmed, and tested.

And, Mack and their controls folks have to find time in their installation, manufacturing, and commissioning schedules to accommodate this. Of course, that assumes that this 2 month downtime is true and they are making any changes in the first place.
 
Is it really true that the park slowed down the launch or used slower wheels in winter? Actively slowing down the train in colder weather just simply isn't something I can wrap my head around but those videos of the ride absolutely crawling at minimal speed, in the evening, are so strange. It can't just be cold weather doing that to the ride...
 
It's unlikely that they slowed down the launch or changed out the wheels. Cold weather can have a significant influence on a ride's pacing though. It's quite astonishing how much cold weather can affect a ride. Changing the grease type or adjusting the amount of grease that is in the wheels can also play a huge part in pacing.
 
So we've gone from stalling due to wind to a train defect. If it's only one of the trains that have the issue, whatever it may be, then hopefully it can be sorted out before summer.
 
Brief update after visiting the park on Saturday: the coaster is indeed open but only on one train, perhaps suggesting the issue is indeed with the other. On the other hand, I wonder whether the park are running one train simply because it’s not busy enough for two. At this point in the season it’s really not an issue - even with one train it didn’t have more than a 5-minute queue and was often walk-on despite it being a Saturday. It’s an outcome of how I think the coaster doesn’t really fit in the park, in the sense that the park really feels aimed at families but then has this really intense coaster right in the middle which of course families are going to largely avoid.

One thing about the wind though - even though the stalling issue is in theory with one of the trains (?), the park weren’t taking any chances. At one point in the day there was what felt to be a slight breeze, barely noticeable with the trees only slightly swaying, yet both RtH and Anubis both were closed for about 45 minutes with signs specifically mentioning the wind. I couldn’t notice a difference in wind strength before, during and after the closure but presumably they have decent sensors on the rides and of course will be playing it safe after the recent stall.

General thoughts on the ride: absolutely incredible, genuinely what a coaster. Some of the strongest airtime I’ve ever experienced, great varied layout, no two rides are ever the same, really nice theming/entrance area and setting over the lake. After two rides I was thinking it was one of the best coasters I’ve ever been on, but I ended up dialling that back and now I’m really not sure where I’d put it in a ranking but I think it would just fall outside my top 10.

It’s just so intense! Because of the spinning it’s nigh on impossible to know which direction you’re headed next, so you can’t really brace yourself or lean into turns etc. My wife and I ended up concluding it would be an incredible coaster with normal/non-spinning Mack trains. Ideally the park would have one of each to enable guests to choose. I think I would place it higher in my ranking but it’s at the upper bound of my intensity limit and whilst I love the airtime the spinning is a bit much for me at times - I could ride it twice back-to-back but then needed a break for a while. There’s also what feels a slight rattle on the sweeping turn around the plaza after the ‘step-up under flip’ (RCDB tells me) as @Nicky Borrill and others have reported earlier in the thread. The airtime though - worth repeating just how strong it is particularly straight after the first launch, but also throughout the layout and ending with two bunny hops which have more airtime than some hypercoasters.

Brief thoughts on the rest of the park:

- loved Heide, super fun with great airtime, a perfect family coaster. Just a shame that the trains are only 6 cars long and they were only running one train - the queue seemed to be a constant 25-30 mins all day.

- Anubis had a fantastic, surprisingly powerful rolling launch (v similar to Fluch van Novgorod’s) but beyond that had quite a classic Gerst rattle so didn’t really rate it.

- strong supporting line-up of family coasters, and indeed family rides - as mentioned the whole park really feels aimed at this demographic leaving RtH standing out as much more extreme. It will take some effort for the park to balance this out I think - maybe a drop tower etc is something that could add to this.

- Water rides opened about midday, initially appeared to be fully closed. The basic log flume layout has great theming and good interaction with its queue and the Mack powered coaster.

- there’s a 35% discount code you can use until March 30th - type in SUPERDEAL when buying tickets to get this.

- the park app was useless in terms of checking queue times: everything just said 0mins queue all day so perhaps they just weren’t updating it for some reason because I checked in half term and timings were changing.

- the famed white horse (‘Annika’) looked really depressed and was stood staring into space the whole time. The goats on the other hand were having the time of their lives being constantly fed by kids.

- the standard lockers are out of order for an unspecified technical reason and won’t be fixed soon. There are giant lockers available in the main train station but you have to get a physical key from the main guest services at the entrance to unlock the padlock which costs €10 and a deposit of some ID. Lost quite a lot of time working this out.

Overall a great day out for a not-huge park. Ride to Happiness is an absolutely incredible coaster, but bordering on my intensity limit. Would really recommend making the journey if you can to experience a coaster pretty unique for us in Europe.
 
I'm wondering why RTH doesn't have longer lines than now. Many reviews say that it only has 20~30min wait even on busier days. Don't think it's because of the good capacity. I know it's really intense which can keep the GP away, but it's unusual for a brand new coaster tho. Anyway, can't wait to ride it someday😍
 
Cascade said:
I'm wondering why RTH doesn't have longer lines than now. Many reviews say that it only has 20~30min wait even on busier days. Don't think it's because of the good capacity. I know it's really intense which can keep the GP away, but it's unusual for a brand new coaster tho. Anyway, can't wait to ride it someday😍
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Can’t speak for anyone else, but on my visits the queue was always walk on or less than 5 minutes….

But that was nothing to do with it being too intense, as that queue still contained more than 50% of the guests on park…

It’s just ‘that’ quiet midweek in winter.

We have to remember, De Panne is a seaside resort… I think the picture will be very different in summer. ;)
 
My first visit was on Halloween last year. A Sunday during half term and the place was packed, the queue for RTH was over an hour and stretched across the plaza and bridge and started by the Heidi turnaround. Visited three weeks later mid week and I was regularly getting zen rides due to an efficient two train operation on a day where staff outnumbered guests. Man that was an incredible day.
 
Interestingly, RTH’s capacity is a lot lower than I’d thought, only being 550pph with 2 16-rider trains according to RCDB: https://rcdb.com/17725.htm

That’s actually lower than Heidi (635pph) and Anubis (700pph) so I’m not sure you can blame capacity for RTH’s short waits.

Perhaps Plopsaland is just quiet?
 
Matt N said:
Interestingly, RTH’s capacity is a lot lower than I’d thought, only being 550pph with 2 16-rider trains according to RCDB: https://rcdb.com/17725.htm

That’s actually lower than Heidi (635pph) and Anubis (700pph) so I’m not sure you can blame capacity for RTH’s short waits.

Perhaps Plopsaland is just quiet?
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That's lower than I would've expected too tbh, but I suppose it does have quite a long ride duration for only 2 x 16 passenger trains so it does sort of make sense.
 
CrashCoaster said:
That's lower than I would've expected too tbh, but I suppose it does have quite a long ride duration for only 2 x 16 passenger trains so it does sort of make sense.
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I also noticed from POVs that the train behind often doesn’t dispatch until the train front hits the brake run and goes round towards the station, which would make 550pph make some sense.
 
Matt N said:
I also noticed from POVs that the train behind often doesn’t dispatch until the train front hits the brake run and goes round towards the station, which would make 550pph make some sense.
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Wouldn't make a difference as long as no stacking occurs. The throughput is only hindered if the train on the brake run has to wait for the one in the station to move.
 
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