PTR: Limburg dinosaur credit run

[ignace]

I think we all can agree that the most depressing time of the year is the winterseason, when the most parks are closed. Last year i decided I wanted to do some parks that aren't number one-parks on the wanted list in the summer, but that are open in the winter. The trip to Limburg (in south-east Netherlands) was easily made: 3 parks, all with one coaster, a nice and cheap camping place and someone with a gps-function on his cellphone. Ow- did I mention already that we went by bike?

We first took the train from Antwerp to Bilzen. The first 12 kilometers to Maastricht were terrible, we didn't expect all the hills. the following 12 kilometers were even worse, their was this moment we just climmed for kilometers, but after those hills was the small, touristic village of Valkenburg, home of the Valkenier.

The entrance looked nice and cute!

This park is creepy! It felt abandoned, but maybe that is because we only saw like 4 guests except for us. Entrance was only 10 euro, I think it was pretty fair since they got a huge collection of kiddie rides.

Creepy clown promenade

It looked like these houses were in het park

Just behind the entrance was the dinosaur area, that was basicly 2 attractions and a lot of plastic dino's around them.

This unique Dancing-queen carousel used to operate in Bellewaerde Park, where now the El Volador is located.

dinosaur

Another dinosaur

The amount of dinosaurs in this park is to damn high!

Doesn't this look like a creepy abandoned ferris wheel to you?

Our next destination seen from the ferris wheel: the mysterious tent. There was no way we could know what kind of creepyness was in there...

If you are afraid of clowns, I suggest you don't see the video!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWfWSqfluBE[/youtube]

The rest in the horrortent

We were pretty lucky, the Zierer credit (aka the biggest coaster of the trip) opened, what is'nt obvious in the first week of march.

The coaster lost all it's colour and took the one from the weed surrounding "achtbaan". the ride itself was at least equally uncomfortable as the Bellewaerde one.

Believe it or not: the track color is supposed to be red.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHZKr95Qc8c[/youtube]

I love car rides, this one's parcour was filled with random animals every sqaure centimer. Loved it.

I love the randomness in this park

Next up: the ghost castle

Don't remember a thing of it, probably it was OK for kids

The waterslide ended up being the best attraction of the park. I was surprised seeing this open in the winter!

The theming on this one also is pretty original

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfLXxcSlQpA[/youtube]

some of our bags .

They had one of those retro simulators. I rode one in the former télécoo, but it was slightly different.

Yay capacity

The operator had some troubles starting the video

The bumper cars were rubbish

now for some random theming foto's of this weird park...

7 creepy dwarfs

We found these right next to the dinosaurs.

After 2.5 hours Valkenier (which was pretty long, really) we left and went to the camping in Heerlen, another 10 kilometer further. We installed our tent and droped our bags, and we went for the next park .

Funny detail: The owners of the camping said we were the first clients this year! After two months .

 

[furie]

If you look into the mirrors, the clowns swallow your souls!!! [/shudder]

The rest in the horrortent

I love the horror of the one with the sign "I Like You" [/shudder again]

They had one of those retro simulators. I rode one in the former télécoo, but it was slightly different.

They used to have one of those at Blackpool. One of my earliest memories of the place was being desperate to get tall enough to "ride on the rocket that goes into space". Then I got tall enough and went on it and it was turd and probably the biggest-disappointment-of-the-life-of-seven-year-old_furie.

We've seen one trip report from this park before, and I remember thinking then it looks really, really odd. It's still the kind of place I'd love to take the family, just for the LOLs because we love really odd and cheesy places

 

[peep]

Haha, that place looks terrifying. Blackpool has one of those scary animatronic clown things too but their one is in a cage and spins

Look forward to part 2.

 

[nadroJ]

Omg I love you you're SUCH a cred whore <3 The parks you report on are so random and kak, amazing <3

 

[gavin]

Let me get this right; this is a kids' park and not the set of a horror movie? That place looks **** ing terrifying!

Those retro simulator things are just sooooooooo ****. They look really cool from the outside, and then you get in them, look at a blurry 20" TV screen, slightly rotate to the sides and tilt upwards about 5 degrees. Crap, but in a hilarious way.

 

[Mysterious Sue]

OMG that's insanely terrifying!
It's like something right out of a horror film! It's definitely the clown in the corner that the worst...with that sign! Eurgh!!!

I love trip reports of such random parks that very few people have been to.

 

[Mysterious Sue]

opps double post!!

Such a burden!

 

[Tomatron]

^Burdenous double post

Anything with clowns automatically raises the creepiness factor by a million points!

 

[ignace]

Let me get this right; this is a kids' park and not the set of a horror movie? That place looks **** ing terrifying!

Those retro simulator things are just sooooooooo ****. They look really cool from the outside, and then you get in them, look at a blurry 20" TV screen, slightly rotate to the sides and tilt upwards about 5 degrees. Crap, but in a hilarious way.

I agree on the simulators, they are awfully bad, but I'm glad to see that there are still some around, they are wrong in so many ways I actually like them .

^Burdenous double post

Anything with clowns automatically raises the creepiness factor by a million points!

Have you ever been to the Efteling? They have a huge darkride with nothing but silly clowns, and the most annoying music tune ever made:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQQFQyAV7fY[/youtube]

OMG that's insanely terrifying!
It's like something right out of a horror film! It's definitely the clown in the corner that the worst...with that sign! Eurgh!!!

I love trip reports of such random parks that very few people have been to.

Call me a freak, but I actually think the clown in the corner is cute .

We've seen one trip report from this park before, and I remember thinking then it looks really, really odd. It's still the kind of place I'd love to take the family, just for the LOLs because we love really odd and cheesy places

Toverland is only about 30 kilometers further, I think the decision is easily made then .

Thanks for the feedback!

 

[ignace]

Re: Hong Kong updates (Big Grizzly Mountain... and Hair Rais

After installing ourselves on the camping, we went for the second park that day, which was only about 3 kilometers from the camping. Kinderstad Heerlen is a park nobody here probably ever heard of, it's bassicly just a big playground for children, but they had a credit. We paid 9 euros if I remember correctly, what was to much imo, but if we came after 3 pm it would have been only 5 euro. We also bought a ticket for the last park of the trip, because it was a few euro cheaper.

We went straight for the big apple.

We ended op being a few of the only coaster fanatics ever to ride this big apple: it only operated for less then a year. The park had a message on their site they were building a MEGA MEGA coaster instead, but the message has been deleted .

i liked the colours on this coaster

The main ride of the park was this mini flume, which suprisingly had 2 drops. the first one (on the photo above, the biggest one) even had some, well not airtime, but let's say: a funny feeling in the stomach that I liked.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRWNGSQEczI[/youtube]

This softplay was huge, but we had enough time to discover the whole thing .

The bumper cars were decent.

The small drop on the end of the flume. There was this sign around the ride which said you could become really wet at the end of the ride, so I expected some kind of water effect, but there was nothing. I do remember that the operator was really cute and that he had to vacuum every single boat that came into the station.

yes, offcourse there were dinoaurs.

we had seen the whole park in a small hour and went for the city "Heerlen" to eat in the local macdonalds. Back at the camping that night, we constantly had te feeling there were people crawling around our tents, but we were the only guests. The morning after there was also someone using the shower, but we only heard him, which was almost equally creepy as the Valkenier. Part 3 coming soon!

 

[Mysterious Sue]

What is it with the Netherlands and epic, epic kids play areas?

As to your question about Efteling, we had a Live there in 2011 so quite a few of us are familiar with the fake It's A Small World ride with equally terrifying music! (Efteling is one of my favorite parks by the way - so, so beautiful)

 

[nadroJ]

I don't get why the UK doesn't have more of these? Considering the weather we have here, I think they'd be really popular! *le sigh*.

That Wacky Worm has a bit of a funky colour scheme!

 

[furie]

We have an absolute shedload (usually in large sheds) of play barns. They just tend not to be quite big enough to also fit in a coaster and stuff. They also tend to be stuck in the arse end of nowhere on an industrial estate between a meat packing factory and an adult toy shop.

 

[nadroJ]

Yh, there are a few around me. It seems like these places are a bit more lenient with the DIY style of doing things so they can get away with more stuff like this?

 

[ignace]

With a small delay, the final part of my Netherlands dinocredit run.

The third and final park we visited wasn't new for me. I visited it with my family many years ago, when the park hadn't any attractions yet. Mondo Verde Opened as a journey around the world in one day, were you walked from the one country-themed zone/building to the next. The concept wasn't successful so they started adding rides- I don't know if the park runs better now, but they convinced me for a second visit.

The park's entrance is not as beautiful as the park itself.

Except for rides and random theming, Mondo Verde also has a large amount of animals, the biggest ones being camels and lions. This bird hit my friend's camera with his beak, but it still worked .

There was also a dinosaur at the entrance.

The first ride was a surprise for me, since I didn't know it would be there (I didn't do any park research, I only knew what coasters we would ride). I had never ridden a Heeghe Skyflyer before, But it sure is a amusing ride. If you don't know the concept, I suggest you watch the onride-POV. My English isn't good enough to explain it .

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AaxT9-7uTA[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgMwfv0wCXI[/youtube]
Best. offride. ever.

The next ride was also a big surprise, but not a first of its kind for me. Nautic Jets are fun rides, and this one was even better than most because it was free!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlZHNL-PHik[/youtube]

The moment where we waited for: riding the coaster! The name of this standard Zierer Tivoli Medium is "wilde tijger achtbaan", which translates to "wild tiger coaster". that is really strange since there were no Wild tigers around, the name was soo unbelievably random. It was at the time the smoothest Tivoli I know, but now I have seen more of these smooth surprises. Formerly it operated at Liseberg, so I guess it had good maintenance.

one of my friends having a good time on the wild tiger coaster

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEe3xd_CgS4[/youtube]

the ride area was awkwardly abandoned when we arrived, so the one operator (for three rides that needed a operator) followed us and asked us what we wanted to ride. It was like having a personal operator that opened every attraction you wanted, a nice experience, wish this could happen in Disney .

One of the other rides was the basic Zierer swinging ship thingy. We rode it only because there was almost nothing else.

And there was a nice bumper car ride, but because it would be pathetic to ride it with only three persons we waited for other people to arrive.

After three rides on the coaster and about one million rides on the Heeghe rides we decided to start our journey around the world.

First up: the rainforest

With a shy parrot

The Italy area looked amazing

Japan I guess

Australia had many birds and some kangaroos

Austria looked amazing

And had a silly, happy goat

the next area was a forest filled with awesome statues from around the world. This one was 13 meters high and pretty impressive.

But they ruined the concept by the **** of dinosaurs that were placed in the forest.

Morocco

Portugal

Mondo Verde was the prettiest and overall best park of the trip, it sure was worth the money (12 Euro with the Kinderstad reduction, if I remember it correctly).

After leaving Mondo verde we packed all our stuff, and we started the ride home. It rained the whole F*cking way, which was about 40 kilometers. Over the hills. On our bikes. With our bags. And to make it all even worse: we had to go to school the next day. But after all, the trip sure was fun and will be a memorable "once in a lifetime-experience". Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it!

 

[caffeine_demon]

The moment where we waited for: riding the coaster! The name of this standard Zierer Tivoli Medium is "wilde tijger achtbaan", which translates to "wild tiger coaster". that is really strange since there were no Wild tigers around, the name was soo unbelievably random.

Looks like thomas the tank engine has taken too many chill pills!