PLOPSALAND DE PANNE and BOUDEWIJN SEAPARK
This will not be a typical park report.
So I went to Plopsaland the day after Bellewaerde. I had heard the lines for the kiddie and family coasters get really long, and I even heard from one person who couldn’t complete all the creds because of the queues. I got there right at opening, however, and managed to plough through all the kiddie and family creds in the first hour! This was an efficient use of time, and it was also useful because if I wanted Ride to Happiness to be my 800th, I’d have to ride nearly everything else first. And that’s what I managed.
Anubis I rode twice. In the front I had a blast, but then found it a lot more rattly in the back later in the day.
Heide the Ride was quite fun — I love GCIs — but it had no airtime.
The Ride to Happiness I rode mid-day, then a couple of times later, and then at the end of the day when the line had shortened, I took my day’s ride total on it to ten. More on that later. All seats were good, but I thought it was best in the front.
TRtH did not emerge as my new number one, despite my thinking it was an outside possibility. I think I just love plunging drops too much on coasters, and that’s what does it for me the most. But there can be no doubt that this coaster is phenomenal. The attribute that really stuck out to me the most was the way that every ride is different. Some rides were nice but nothing too special, but some rides featured moments of utter insanity that had me cackling like a madman. As for a nit to pick, on some rides the last few elements were quite shuddery-rough, which is perhaps concerning on a new coaster (Time Traveler, by contrast, is glass smooth throughout). Overall, TRtH is a phenomenal coaster, something that really stands out as different in my coaster riding experience.
Sadly, it will stand out for another reason. Some of you may recall my having mentioned that on I305 a few years ago I got a bad concussion. It was not from an impact, but from my head being shaken. Learned the hard way that that’s a thing. This concussion was terrible and lasted two and a half months. Not fun.
Well, with the adrenaline pumping, I didn’t notice much wrong during my marathon of TRtH, but afterward, on the train ride back to Bruges, I could feel it. Almost dizzy, almost like a hangover. Hard to describe. Not as bad as the last time, but definitely there and definitely a problem. Now, forty-eight hours later, I still feel it. So what does this mean? First, unless I make a remarkable 100% recovery tomorrow, the first thing it means is I’ll have to skip Walibi Belgium the next day, the last day of my trip. But I’ll see a doctor when I get back, and what I really fear is that this may be the end of my coaster hobby. Hopefully, a doctor will tell me scaling back and being careful is still a possible approach, but repeat concussions and the brain are nothing to mess with, so frankly this is quite a downer to end the trip with.
At any rate, the next day I spent seeing Bruges (which I enjoyed a lot, despite several telling me it’s a boring place), and in the morning, I walked just south of the main part of town to visit Boudewijn Seapark. Yes, they have a coaster. I believe it’s called Orca Ride. And while I strolled about a bit, pet a goat or two, and caught a dolphin show, it was essentially an expensive +1 credit.
I just hope that in the long run TRtH doesn’t prove the most expensive credit in my coaster-riding hobby.
Yeah Eurosat had all those things too (music was better!), it was weird riding them back to back at Europa. The ride type & train was literally the same as Spatiale though, along with the indoor romp and theming.
