PTR: Paris trip

[ignace]

The Belgian coasterclub "Rollercoaster friends" planned a bus-trip to paris at the last weekend of the Belgian Easter Holidays. I visited Paris 3 times already before, but except for Disneyland I never get to see a park there. This weekend we would visit 2 parks that were new for me and the largest fair of Paris. First up: Jardin D'acclimitation.

This baby had to wait another day!

Yay!

A good tip for everyone who plans a trip to the Jardin: Don't. It is a cute and nice park, but it is just extremely unbelievable expensive. Entrance price is almost 30 euro's, which already is over the top, but it really only is entrance. You have to pay for every single ride to!

The park was bussy when we arrived, but since the rides weren't free, there were no long lines.

We got 5 ride tickets from the organizers, just enough to ride all the coaster and one other ride.

There are three "real" coasters in Jardin, and the pink Custom Reverchon spinner was the worst. It didn't spin like the big ones, it didn't had a large drop... Maybe we just had a bad ride. Another point of criticism: to ride "Les Papillions d'Alice", you had to pay 2 ride tickets instead of one. When you count it out, you have to pay over 5 euro to ride this kiddiespinning!

The Soquet (or as we like to call it: suckit) powered coaster easily was the best coaster of the Jardin. Smooth, fast enough and a tunnel that came as a surprise in terms of Airtime. Ignace <3 Soquet.

Les Tacots wasn't my first powered coaster from the French coaster builders. On the Belgian Fair's, we have a small but fast powered coaster filled with airtime, called "Tokyo Express".

Last credit was "Lifthill: the ride". Seriously, I don't believe their is an Arrow Minetrain that comes close to this sillyness. The coaster was like what 300 metres long and had 3 (!) lifthills. The best part of the coaster was the turn between the station and the first lifthill. Still liked it though, a good kiddie ride.

The park looked nice in some places.

The biggest ride of the park was this boat ride. Nothing special actually, but we had to kill some time.

The park had some animals, the biggest one being a bear.

Looks legit

Nevermind

Jardin D'acclimatation: I'm glad I been there, I will never go again. Thanks for reading .

 

[nadroJ]

What the hell why did you pay €30 to get in?! It's €3 and then you pay per cred, it wasn't much more expensive than a fun fair? I thought it was a rather quaint little place too, definitely had some charm about it.

 

[ignace]

What the hell why did you pay €30 to get in?! It's €3 and then you pay per cred, it wasn't much more expensive than a fun fair? I thought it was a rather quaint little place too, definitely had some charm about it.

I'm not sure about it, but our entrace ticket said the entrance price was that high- I didn't bought it myself, since we were in a group so I'm not sure.

 

[nadroJ]

Sounds like you got ripped off haha, look on the website, €3 for entry plus ride tickets.

 

[Martyn B]

Yeah it was only €3 Euro last year, and like Jordan, I quite liked the place.

I'm thinking about going to Paris again this year, when the foire du trone is on.

 

[ignace]

Jaj Part 2, Foire du throne!

This Fair is gigantic. The only other fair I visited that can be compared with this giant in terms of size, is the one in Herne (Germany). It wasn't as cosy and nice as his German brother, but it had an awesome coaster collection, not to mention they had about every thrill ride you can dream off. Well, not everything, but sure a lot.

After our bags were controlled (the fair is at the poor, high-crimesection of Paris I heard), we immidiately went to the Schwarzkopf Jet Star. For some reason, it is still the only non-looping Schwarzkopf coaster of the 6 ones i rode. It is an awesome and intens small ride, and incredibely smooth for it's age. Another awesome thing of this awesome ride is the lack of restraints, It was like a Log flumeboat on a coaster <3.

Big apple time! The only special thing about this one was the fact that the brakes weren't working on the drop. It really is an improvement.

The topcoaster of the day was dominating the fair like the king it is. This Soquet giant is like the Alpina bahn of Soquet. The OTSR hurted a little, it was rough as hell, I loved it anyway. the best part of the ride is the tunnel at the end, wich is filled with subtle airtimehills.

Another one of those Zyklons. I thought the ride would be a lot like the one at Prague, but it had one small difference: after getting up the hill after the tunnel-drop, you had a huge pop of airtime, but really, like Collosos-or Silver Star airtime, really weird for a coaster like that. I liked the colours to .

pink lifthill of the day 2!

Another non-special kiddie cred. Ride op gave us 5 laps, with only 16+ in the train we were really ashamed .

Last coaster was a standard Spinning Mouse thing. Normally speaking I like those, but this one tried to spin my bag out of the ride, so I didn't had the chance to enjoy the ride .

That was it for Foire, Next and last part is Parc Asterix

 

[furie]

That Topcoaster looks really fab, why have I never seen that before???

 

[ignace]

That Topcoaster looks really fab, why have I never seen that before???

That's King, and it isn't really well known .

 

[peep]

Yeah, 30 euros for Jardin is a joke, something dodge happened there me thinks. I visited the park last year but the coasters weren't open </3 Still it was a really nice park to walk around and has loads of stuff for kids.

That fair does look huge, I get the feeling it was on when I went to Paris too but I didn't know about it before going and only realised that a massive fair must have been on because we could see a giant ferris wheel and booster off in the distance from the top of the Eiffel Tower (unless I saw something else?).

Look forward to reading your thoughts on Asterix.

 

[tks]

That transition is disgusting </3

 

[gavin]

I thought Jardin was a cute little park for €3 as well. I wasn't going to bother with it, but I wanted to check out La Defense and it's pretty close, so I just called in there first and then walked up.

Have you just misread the price at the entrance booth, or has someone who organised the trip actually tried to tell you it's cost €30? If it's the second option, I would be making a phone call.

The coasters at the fair look decent, especially the sheer number of them and that weird Soquet contraption. It doesn't look very atmospheric though. When is it usually on? I keep saying I'll head back over to Paris to see friends and I just never get around to it.

 

[LiveForTheLaunch]

Wish I went to Jardin! I thought it was like one kiddie cred in a park for some reason but it looks pretty cute. That fair also looks really awesome. I went to a fair in Paris but it was nothing like that, it only had La Pomme (a Big Apple).

 

[ignace]

I thought Jardin was a cute little park for €3 as well. I wasn't going to bother with it, but I wanted to check out La Defense and it's pretty close, so I just called in there first and then walked up.

Have you just misread the price at the entrance booth, or has someone who organised the trip actually tried to tell you it's cost €30? If it's the second option, I would be making a phone call.

The coasters at the fair look decent, especially the sheer number of them and that weird Soquet contraption. It doesn't look very atmospheric though. When is it usually on? I keep saying I'll head back over to Paris to see friends and I just never get around to it.

The trip organistors didn't tell what the price was, and wouldn't be asking more money than is needed. The whole trip (entrance Jardin+ 5 ride tickets, Entrance Asterix, hotel, bus and buffet in asterix) was around 130 euro's, what was pretty cheap imo. There is no way they could have charged 27 euro's extra!

I read the 30 euro's-thing on an entrance ticket I found later, but I'm probably mistaking

King (the large Soquet coaster) is a coaster the most people won't enjoy though, around 1 on 3 persons on the trip liked it (more or less).

 

[Martyn B]

That fair is on for just over two months, from the beginning of April to mid-ish June.

LFTL, you on about that fair in the Tuileries gardens, next to the Louvre? I thought it was bit odd that they allowed such a tacky looking fair ground to set up somewhere really nice like the Tuileries gardens...

 

[ignace]

The morning after the creditwhore day started early. ERT on the new coaster of Parc Asterix was waiting. But when we were ready for the new B&M, it had some troubles. Finally I managed to get 3 rides on this beautifull and kick-ass coaster.

Oziris isn't very intense, but the inversions and turns certainly do something to you- something nice. It ended up being my favorite B&M when I rode it. The intresting thing about this inverted is that it has some airtime: on the first drop and on the drop prior to the last (and imo best) inversion. The station and queue are examples of the best theming I ever saw. In fact, I think Parc Asterix has the best Queue lines of all the parks I visited. When they aren't filled with jokes and things to read, they just make silly turns from the entrance to the station, giving you a good look at the whole ride you are waiting for. The only ride with a queue not so nice is the spillwater ride.

Standard Zierer cred, we were lucky since it broke down later that day.

I like Mack Bobsleds. They are probably my favorite type of family coasters, just behind the vekoma Minetrains. Trace du hourra is far from as good as Heide's bobsled (<3), but it is a much better ride than the one at Europa. We waited almost an hour for this ride because they didn't want to run it with all the trains. Same story at Tonerre later that day. Operations are terrible in Asterix. I came back later this year (the reason for that will be clear soon), when there was almost nobody, and that day they were running all the trains on the bobsled, We could walk through the line untill the station. There is absolutly no logic in Asterix' operatings.

Picture of me on credithunt

"you are here" lol

I liked Le grand Splatch. It was long, had a nice setting apart from the expired-on-the-inside mountains and the little water effects were really cool. The drop itself was a typically Intamin We-can't-make-it-straight like in Mirabilandia but it sure was wet enough.

I heard story's about a credit in Asterix that is so hard to find, some people just don't. So I looked up the route to this sucker before leaving for Asterix. I'm talking offcourse about Le ronde de rondins

The ride was something I will never forget: we had a rollback on the lifthill! Looks like it isn't build for adults after all .

Asterix is a beautifull park, but a large part of it is very bad maintained. The station building of the flume exists out of names people carved in the woods, The older parts of the park show their age really good and the most "moving" theming elements are broke (Fountains, the moving gears at defi de cesar, probably a thousand other things- I never been there when it worked). This is something every CDA park has. But there are thousand more reasons why I think CDA is the worst park group ever.

Goudurix... stalled somewhere after the corkcrews. it wouldn't open that day. When we walked to Tonerre, it wasn't working either, and neither was the last Zierer. The other 2 Zierers stopped working after the noon. Transdemonium closed not much later, we didn't get to ride it, and the boats near the viking village were closed all year long. Defi De Cesar didn't work properly and Oziris Had some childhood diseases. The Zierer and Tonerre opened after all, but this amount of closed rides is just unacceptable. My boyfriend had a new number 1 bottom park, and I had a hard time keeping my enthusiasm high.

When we passed by Tonerre de zeus, It magically opened and we were almost the first ones to ride that day. For years I heard storys about this Superwoodie, that was fast and had some serious airtime. It was the biggest dissapointment in my life so far. I thought it was decent, but it was rather slow and had troubles getting to the final brakes: it was that slow and boring! Everyone in the group who already rode it before said this isn't normal, so I guess normally it's more fun, but now it jusn't wasn't worth waiting for to ride again.

The flying carpet ride was as much a surprise as Tonerre, but in the positive way: it deliverd better rodeo than Bandit, but without being painfull. One of the best rides in Asterix if you ask me, a must-do!

Time to eat.

Everything went better then expected

L'oxygenarium is a ride I was curious for. My only experience of this type of rides was Bobby drop and smaller funfair variants. Also a really nice surprise here, this thing is a crazy ride and my only two thoughts during it were: "THIS IS TRYING TO KILL US" and "IT IS ALSO LOADS AND LOADS OF FUN".

Car rides are my favorite rides and the one in Asterix is my favorite in the whole world so far. It is almost perfect. Beautifull, long, and filled with animatronics, dark ride sections and jokes. Something you really can't miss when you are in Asterix!

Menhir express, a water ride I was looking forward to for years. It ended up being one of my top 5 flumes, it was awesomly wet, and had a surprise coaster part which was nice. The only reason it isn't my number one flume is the floating green container.

Container-fun?

Defi de Cesar is probably the best ride in Asterix. It blowd my mind before the actual ride even started. the main show was having troubles though, the sound didn't work. Later that year: same story. ASTERIX PLS

Next to it was a really boring Intamin Rapid. Long yes, fun no. The small Mack boat thing had more thrill to offer. Also, it looked like crap. Maintenance is good for you!

And than, as a miracle, the Zierer finally started working. The whole park was in the queue but we didn't really care. Well it was a fun ride, just a decent Zierer like the one at Dippiedoe.

No goudurix for me today. That's why I look happy.

Isn't a refurbishment something normal parks do in the winter so they don't annoy their guests?

King of the castle, king of the castle, go do this go do that

Transdemoium, ok I didn't ride it that day, but I thought: let me write what I think of it anyway. It's pretty crapy, asterix can do much better! the waiting line, building and last scene are beautifull but the ride itself isn't much better than the average fair ghost castle, only longer.

time flies when everything is closed, time to go back to ride Oziris a few last times.

Best gag of the whole park!

Parc Asterix... I would place it really high in my top ten, but I don't. CDA ruined another great park...

-closed rides
-price
-awful maintenance
-bad operations
-closing rides, which can be prevented like the boat ride (and goudurix and Tonerre where also testing new brakes/wheels during the season)
-+new rides. Yes we had a B&M, it was 5 years ago since they added something and my guess is: we will have to wait another 5 years for the next new thing
+good rides!
+great theming, especially the queues.

Thanks for reading!

 

[furie]

Asterix was top of my "must do" parks when I first joined CF. It had such a great reputation as a gorgeous park, awesome theming, brilliant atmosphere and one of the best woodies out there.

Each year, I read reports and it heads farther down my list of places to go. Oziris bumped it up a little last year, but then it slipped again as I read the reports. One good invert, a great woodie "if it's running well and you happen to like it" and lots of broken stuff and huge queues.

Such a shame the park has been left to go into that kind of state.

 

[peep]

Shame to hear you had a really bad day at the park. If you read my review from last year you can see I had a totally different experience. Some things I do agree with though:

- OzIris is incredible
- Operations make weird decisions
- The rapids are awful
- Defi de Cesar is amazing
- Incredible theming
- Expensive to get in
- The car ride is the best one out there

I can't say I've had a bad ride on Zeus, it's always been a fast and crazy ride when I've been. Maybe I've just been very lucky with my trips to Asterix?

Hehe, we also managed to get a rollback on the little kids coaster and then the train decided to sit not quite in the station area so we had to wait in the train till engineers came to turn it off and back on again

 

[Martyn B]

You totes hit the place on a bad day. Despite it being incredibly busy for my trip last year, I loved place and I'm planning on returning this year. We never had any maintenance issues, just guest issues. It was SO busy I only managed 1 ride on each of the main coasters (except Oz, 3 times on that - single rider).

Also, your friends are right, Zeus is normally insane! Not filled with airtime by any means, but the speed just seems relentless.

 

[marc]

No your mates are wrong zues is totally over rated, the only air time is on the first drop.

I was not a fan of the park or their operations. They caused mass confusion at the end of the day buy opening up the front line queue to everyone when there were loads of people that had been waiting.