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TR:Basic Euro-Enthusiast : Part 1 - Toverland, Part 2 -Bobbejaaland, Part 3 - Basic RMC-ness., Part 4 - Contingency (Fury and a Kirmes)

davidm

davidm

Strata Poster
Since I'd had a bit of a BIG TRIP earlier in the year I had not got scope (time off work, holiday budget and enthusiasm) for my traditional
summer road-trip somewhere. But summer seemed like a long stretch of time to not do anything, so I had booked a couple of long weekends off
work to break up the long stretch ; last month I just went off to Glasgow for the the weekend, basically seeing a bit of their beer-culture
(was OK, not as good as Edinburgh tho'), but this month, since "they" had started opening up all the new-for-2019 euro-coasters, and since
every basic Thom, Dick and Howie were rushing over to see the new RMC, I booked up something similar...

Friday 12th July - Toverland

Get up at goon o'clock in the morning to get the 6:45am flight from Manchester to Dusseldorf - that was fun.

Such luxury?!?


Pick car up in Germany, all very easy, drive to Holland (its like 40 minutes away) and rock up in sight of a nice woody.



Been to Toverland only once before, in 2012, so there were a couple of +1s here, and there has been a pretty large amount of investment
and change to what I had thought was already a pretty nice (if a bit small) place.

First up was a completely new entrance way - you used to enter through the one big indoor warehouse thingys, but they have gone and built a
proper "theme park entrance" now ; and very swish it is too.



Even if it does then dump you Thorpe-park like into a a little water-area that you have to negotiate in order to get around to the park proper.





First up gotta head straight to the newish B&M Fēnix haven't I?

Rush through the rather nice little area it is located in (time to gawp at the scenery later, there's creds to be got) and head into the Q.



Touch of Dualing-Dragons there ^

Q-line is all quite well done too, bit awkward stairs set up to get the line to split over to the two sides (the place is empty, there are no
people in the line) and straight onto the front-left corner for the first go...

(pics from later)





Nice start, with a big animatronic thing (apparently an Ice Dragon, why not an animatronic Phoenix I wonder) breathing fire (fake smoke) over
the train as it approaches the lift hill.

Really nice ride, dive-drop, airtime hops, head-choppers, big rolls and more head-choppers - it packs a lot into what is (relatively) a
quite short ride - you still think it could go on for a bit more when you hit the breaks and the big train trundles back into the station
though.





Barely any other people in line, people only waiting for the front row, so skip back to the back row without re-Q-ing.

Its a bit more "wobbly" in the back, has a bit of a judder to it to be honest, but since its not that big not that fast (still reasonably big
and fast, just not Gatekeeper-big) and its a bit more intense in the back, can feel a bit of G-force greying out starting in places.





Have to re-negotiate the empty Q-line to switch sides, but ride it front and back on the right hand side too (because why wouldn't you?)





So really liked this. Its a good ride in a lovely setting. Very well done all round. If it were a bit longer, might be one of the best of this
type out there but I'm not really sold on this style of ride to be honest, so while they are pretty much all good coasters not sure that this
style can ever make it to that god-like tier?

By the way, its been raining all this time, not heavy, but enough to notice, especially zooming around the Dutch countryside on some silly
machine.

Wandering back towards the "old" part of the park is the other +1 of the day so I grab a couple of rides on that in the light rain.



Dwervelwind is a Mack spinning coaster (so like the one for Paultons next year) and for what it is, a family-friendly crowd pleaser,
its pretty fun. Not something that on its own would have brought me back to the park, but combined with the nice beemer made the trip inviting.







Around this time the rain started getting a bit more serious though, so headed indoors into the (vast) warehouse-like space that I assume was
where it all began for the place (as an expanding FEC type place).

Think the indoor spaces were looking a bit shabby to be honest, I didn't remember them being suchlike from my previous visit. Perhaps the well
appointed stuff that they have outside now is putting the indoor areas to shame? They still serve a very strong purpose though, housing a lot
of kiddy rides and of course somewhere to hide out from the rain while still having stuff to do.



Did ride the indoor kiddy-coaster of course Toos-Express (formerly bizarrely named as Boomerang)



The heavy rain was still happening, so I found out some lunch and sat and watched it for a while.

The park attempted to distract me from the rain by running a water-fountain show for a while in another new-to-me area, that was nice, but
the rain was winning out I think.



Did find a Q then though - for the low capacity bobkart toboggan thing that was here before but had been expanded (I think) and themed-up
quite substantially since my previous visit.



Not only was the line indoors, but they had build a full cover over all the track to keep the punters dry in the rain. Had to Q about 30 mins
for that too, but I got a good "no-slowdown" ride on it that time. I rode it again later just before I left and that second go was about 30s
slower that the first one, despite the full-go position I was maintaining both times, because of slow people ahead of me, pah!



Rode the log flume in the light rain, think I skipped it last time, was OK.



And next up the Booster-Bike, still raining but only light by now. Front-row, totally won that race.







Had been ignoring the big wooden thing you will have noticed, that's because I was planning to ride it a lot. Finally headed up it to it then
and with barely a Q was on Troy. Glorious ride this. (Even if it has one of those stupid station-fly-throughs that were all the rage
for about 30 minutes back in the day)





Proper, big, fast, wonderful woody this, love it.

Only after my first ride as I walk back around (there is just enough people riding it to have to go around rather than hop back on an empty row) total disaster strikes and they are shutting the ride down. Due to the rain. Which has bizarrely been easing off. To be fair they had been
running all the outside stuff in the light rain, but there was some pretty black-looking clouds on the horizon so I assume they shut down
(everything outside) more because of that nearby storm than the actual local weather.

So I sulked for a while, and wandered around indoors with everyone else avoiding the weather. The rain never got very bad and after a while
I was sat outside (under an umbrella) having a coffee, when the booster bike suddenly cycled...

I headed back into Troy's Q and caught the eye of one of the ops, deployed the universal sign of "hey pal, what's going on?" by looking
forlornly at him and shrugging my shoulders, he smiled and beckoned me in.

So I then had a rather zen-like ride on Troy. No-one else had realised they were re-opening (no trains had cycled) and so I sat in the front
row on an otherwise empty train fully expecting to sit there for a while until some other peeps turned up, but no - they checked my
restraints and off weI went. I have ridden rides on my own before of course, but never anything this "substantial". Great stuff.



So I marathoned it for the next hour. Most times I could just get back on again on an empty row, other times if there was a full train
waiting just walk around the Q (a welcome few minutes breather to be honest).







I do like Troy.

Got a bit lost trying to find the entrance to the rapids, did a couple of circuits of the area before I found it - dopey me. They were pretty
good too, they headed back to the Fēnix area to take some pics and took a trip on the leisurely boat ride to see if it got any more good angles
on the coaster.







There was some funky indoor section to the boat ride (underneath the station for Fēnix) but can't say there was much too exciting going on.



Had a couple more rides on Fēnix but think the Troy marathon had killed me a bit to be honest as they were a bit unpleasant and I felt I should
call it a day. A very nice day despite the rain.



--

Was staying in central Eindhoven, and after a bit of a faff involving driving up to my hotel for someone to come out of the hotel to tell
me that their parking entrance was 3 streets away and then having to drive around for a while before I found the entrance (the parking was
underneath the hotel, just via the back entrance not the front) got settled in. Oddly the shower in my room was in my room rather than the
bathroom - there wasn't a bathroom, just a toilet - I guess that's what I get for staying in a hipster converted office-block hotel thing.



Ventured out, found a brewery;





And all was right with the world.
 
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Good read, as ever.

I notice a slightly different aesthetic to your photos this time round. New camera, new processing, something looks different (although not bad!) on them?
 
^ been processing them a bit different - had to get a new compact ~12 months ago and I kinda never liked the way the low-processed pics came out compared to my previous compact (which displeased me somewhat, the newer one was just a later version of the older one which had stopped working) - so I'm just trying pushing everything through a psuedo-HDR filter in Lightroom rather than just the auto-tone before I upload them... might tone down the saturation a bit on the next batch I think as these are all a bit bright perhaps?

Anyway also been playing around (like I do)...





 
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Saturday 13th July - Bobbejaaland

Didn't have to get up so early this morning, which was a good job as I probably had one or two beers too many the previous night ;)

Wandered around the town a bit in a search for McD's and then drove to the next country, which was also just down the road to get to today's
basic euro-goon park; Bobbejaaland.



Been here before, but bizarrely had managed to completely miss riding one of their coasters - I thought I had seen a sign saying not working
and did not ever go up to the ride to investigate properly - so today was going to be another +2 day with their interesting new for 2019
ride as well.

Little faff at the ticket booth as I presented my ECC card which I understood got me 50% off entry ; ticket-booth girl had to go and check this
which annoyed the people behind me in the ticket Q I imagine, but she came back after a few mins and was all "oooh yes that's fine"



New-machine goon enthusiasm takes over and I get into the park... only to see this problematic sign;



Hmmmm not liking the look of that - wander over to the ride and there's a chap out front telling everyone its not running. I wait patiently for
a gap in the punters and ask him to tell me in English what's going on - a bit has fallen off the ride he says, that's not good I say, its an
important bit he says, to do with the launch and that's quite important. Hmmm. They've ordered a new bit he says (!!!!) and it might turn up
later (what?!?!) and it only takes an hour to fix he reckoned (this is sounding weirder and weirder isn't it, but he was quite serious it
seemed). Check back later in the afternoon he said, if we can get it running by 5 we'll keep the park open a bit longer so everyone can have
a go. OK that last bit sounds promising, I'll just have to occupy myself until the afternoon and see what's what then (I had half planned to
get out of there early afternoon if I'd done everything and pick up some of those off Dutch +1s on the way up the country later so that half
plan was out the window straight away).



Anyhoo, I went off and actually found the entrance to the nearby coaster I missed last time ; Revolution



The VR-side was not working that day though so was all roped off.



Bizarre indoor thing this. Odd, really long train that wrapped around one side of the building that housed it and also the front and back of
the train wrapping around the corner - made loading all a bit of a faff I think. Then the train slowly spirals itself up inside the building
and then hurtles somewhat back down again. And rather strangely I quite liked it. Enough to have another go straight away but waiting a train
for the back car which I figured might have a bit more whip to it, and it did.



Park is around a lake and I've got part way around all ready so keep going. Next up is the uneventful mouse Speedy Bob. It once had
a twin that sat next to it, but now its just a patch of waste ground. Sad.







Skipped the next coaster as it had a bit of a line but picked up the kiddy coaster Oki Doki as I wandered past. For a kiddy ride
its not bad, not great obviously, just not bad. Had also started raining a bit by then.





I seemed to recall their powered ride being not bad (for a powered coaster) so headed into that next, it had a bit of a Q, say 20 mins. So by
the time I'd worked my way through the Q for Bob Express the rain had intensified a bit. In fact, quite a lot. This actually added to
the experience a bit as I got completely soaked on the thing. Ha ha very funny.







I did really like this old poster in the station for Bob Express, nice touch that (or they had not bothered decorating for a few years, who
can tell?)



Since I was wet already, I rode the indoor log flume. People seem to think this is great, its not really, its just that it being indoor is a
bit odd.



Sat out some of the rain with an early lunch and later when the rain had stopped for a while picked up another 2 coasters

They've made a big effort with the area for the new ride, some posh themeing dotted around and they have integrated the entrances to two of
the older rides to be in the same 'plaza'.



So the entrance for Typhoon is now pretty near the entrance for Fury and the Sledge Hammer swing ride (which I didn't ride today).



Kinda laughed to myself though as the entrance to Typhoon is now just a pathway that takes you back around the coaster to where the old way in
was. Anyway Q wasn't bad and I'm soon on.





Its not bad this one, I recall riding it a few times last time I was here but just the once is enough for today I think. It does a decent lift
and loop and then its got a few high off the ground barrel rolls and helixes going on.





I check in with the chap guarding the entrance to Fury - still broken, still might open later he says.

Nearby is the, what was a new ride last time I was here, now renamed to Naga Bay (rather than "Dizz") a nice enough little spinner
thing that spins around the edge of the lake and amongst the trees.



Head back towards the last (operating) coaster that I've not ridden yet, but get distracted by the imminent start of the new-this-season
in park show thing (in fact so new that today was its first operating day, this was the second show of the day tho'). Cruelly it is all tied
in with the new spiteful roller coaster and named 'The Legend: Land of Fire and Flames'. I'm not really one for park shows very much, but
this was all rather good I thought. (No pics as there was a no-photos rule).

There were two acts; the first, shorter act was a couple doing that swinging around on a rope thing, often the bloke was the one attached
to the rope and holding the girl by some feat of strength all 30 foot off the ground - lots of high-tech lighting and such like going on
as well ; all very impressive. The main act was even better though, a troupe of 4 people doing all these fire tricks - loads of neat things
involving various members of the troupe and lots (and lots) of fire. Anyway I enjoyed it and recommend it as a decent 1/2 hour use of your
time if you are there and its on this summer. Found a dodgy YT video of it too ;

So ridden all the (operating) coasters by now apart from Dream Catcher so suck up the Q (was about 20 mins so not awful) and head onto
this odd, but relatively fun, Vekoma thing. Never rode it as Air Race (with plane themed cars) think I'd have preferred that themeing to the
somewhat confused dream-catcher thing but fun enough.







(I obviously also rode the big wheel at some point to take a few of these pics - that was walk on)







Check back in at spiteful Fury - and the news has changed! But not for the better, its not going to run today - Boo. It'll run tomorrow the guy
helpfully suggests - well that's no good I've got plans for tomorrow haven't I!





I'd spotted a sign for a "history museum" earlier, and I quite like those sort of things at parks, so headed back to find it (turns out its
just a display on the monorail exit platform in the wild west area). Had a fair few models of the park rides and some olde pictures of the
place, took a few pics but everything was behind glass so a bit hard to get good ones;













Ahh look, Speedy Bob's missing twin :(



The monorail only runs every 20 mins or so, but due to some lucky timing it turned up just as I'd done geeking out at the olde models and
stuff so hopped onto that for a lap of the park.



(A few of the earlier pics taken on that lap too)

Monorail spends a good period of time giving you excellent views of the car park too - fantastic that.







Right, I'm done after that. Head to guest services for a moan - I have a 'spare' day on Monday (well a contingency day if Walibi is too busy
tomorrow really and to be honest I had not really worked out what to do with the day apart from get back to Düsseldorf for the flight home in
the evening, perhaps pick up some of those odd Dutch +1s on the way) so I figure I might as well some back here (assuming Fury is mended by
then of course). I want to see if there is someone I can call on Sunday to see if its running then before I commit to it though as its
a bit of a detour to get back here - so I the guest services lady is very nice, but says no there isn't a number I can call but that doesn't
matter because Fury runs every day. I point out the problem with that statement as it hasn't run at all today and we have a little laugh about
that. So I ask if there is some "cut price return ticket" I can get for Monday (just in case I can find out its not running on Sunday then
I wouldn't bother coming back) and she goes off to see. Now to be clear, I'm expecting her to give me a free ticket, but I've not asked for a
free ticket, just a discount one which is the usual "get a cheap ticket for the next day" type deal (notwithstanding I had a cheap ticket to
get in with the ECC card). Anyway she comes back and gives me the free ticket so I act all pleased and surprised by that (I was pleased, just
not surprised) - guest services doing the right thing there, well done them.

In putting together this TR (and presumably anyone looking at it) it sounds like I had a pretty poor day at Bobbejaaland, but I hadn't really -
I was fairly relaxed about that Fury spite and had had a pretty nice day despite the Fury faff and the on/off rain throughout the day. Yeah
the park isn't the best, there's some ropey bits and ageing rides and themeing but there are some nicer bits and the new area was all well done
(despite the spiteful Fury).

So I headed off, reasonably cheerfully for a ~2 hour drive back up through Holland to Zwolle where I was staying for the evening. I'd stopped
on the outskirts of Zwolle the last time I was heading to Walibi (in fact in the same hotel as Will had stayed at in his recent TR).
That was an good enough hotel, but a couple of miles out of the town centre so when I had gone into the town that time and quite liked it I'd
resolved that the next time I was around here I'd stay nearer the centre to facilitate a few adult beverages in the town. So to that end I'd
booked up in a Campanile on the edge of the town (not as nice as the Mercure, but was perfectly fine).

So had a wander around the very pretty little town centre in the evening, had a beer or two and a pizza 'cos I'm cultured like that.







(not so cultured that I didn't end up in the Oirish bar tho')



Next up, some proper basic business...
 
Sunday 14th July - Walibi Holland



OK so I've been joking about the "basicness" of this trip, really just because there's been a slew of minitrips from goons left right and centre
who have been off to Walibi Holland to ride the new RMC. And clearly that's what I'm doing too, just no originality I'm afraid. Anyway today's
the day so let's do this...

It's only a couple of years since I last was here (when Lost Gravity was new) so there is only really one thing I'm bothered about today and
I was reasonably optimistic as I gathered with the people waiting for the doors to open than it might be a quiet day.



But by the time 10am came round and they opened up proper quite a crowd had built up and we all rushed off to the back of the park - the local
kids all running flat out, the English goon just walking briskly enough to keep ahead of the masses :)

Into the Q then and there's not many ahead of me, couple of trains worth but have to walk the full Q line for the rather nice aesthetically
pleasing thing that is the new RMC Untamed. Since I'm Q-ing properly, I wait a train for the back row and we are off...



OK so I've got a few of the RMCs, about half of them ; they are good, very good in fact and I've heard a lot of good things about this new
euro-RMC in the 2 weeks (and a billion basic TRs) it has been open, so I'm quite looking forward to this a lot.

Hill is a bit slow but that doesn't really matter, first drop, airtime bump, funny inversion, hill after hill, more funny inversions, more funny
hills and barrel roll and hop up to the brakes to end it all - it has all the right ingredients to be a fab ride, but...

...that first ride was pretty poor indeed! ::shock::

Whether it was because that was something like the fourth train of the day or I was too tightly restrained or whatever, it was slow, hills did
nothing for me, totally underwhelming and the only "good" part of the ride for me was that final barrel roll low to the ground. Hmmm - that is
not a good sign at all is it, what have all those goons been going on about with their "world beater" reviews?

OK so we are not leaving it there are we? Spotted the SRQ entrance (which I'd just rushed past a few minutes earlier in my goon-haste) and
headed in again ; just a few minutes wait for the next go - the stairs for the SRQ give a good view of a fair bit of the ride so you can even
kill the time in the SQ with some goontography.









(Warning ; there's going to be a lot of pics of Untamed in this post)

SRQ is controlled by a ride-op pretty well ; they are batching people from the main Q at the station entrance, letting a few peeps Q for
front or back and were initially batching up odd numbered groups from the main Q so that not many singles were getting let on, but still a
10 minutes wait behind 5/6 other people is no hardship when they are running 2 trains (as they were).

Second go I get allocated row 2. And fortunately its a different beast this time. Airtime is all working properly, starting to enjoy the
inversions and getting used to the restraints... getting better then...







So I spend the next 90 minutes or so cycling it as much as the SRQ allows. Sometimes it's a 10-15 minute wait and then sometimes maybe only
one train. For one glorious period of half an hour or so the batching ride-op was relatively inefficient in her batching of the main Q so was
letting 2 or 3 people on per train from the SRQ (should not really be working like that should it? Not that I am complaining at all of course)
so was getting back on the ride with barely a wait - while the main Q being pretty full up (and not moving quite as quick as it could I guess).







So yeah, actually this is a very good ride, that first lap was clearly an aberration. As you get used to the order of the elements and just let
the ride 'flow' it's a great thing. I see where people are saying mini-Steel Vengeance in that a couple of the element (especially the off
centre airtime hill) feel much like similar elements on Vengeance, but the difference really is that "mini" bit ; the similar elements on
Vengeance are like 5x the size of them on Untamed, so despite it being very good indeed, it's really not in the same class as Vengeance.





I don't do that ranking thing very much, but in terms of RMCs I'd put it behind Vengeance, Wildfire, Lightning Rod and maybe just behind
Twisted Colossus but ahead of the others I've ridden (Wicked Cyclone, Outlaw Run, New Texas Giant, Iron Rattler)

My idea then was to "do" the rest of the park and come back to Untamed towards the end of the day for a few more laps. So headed off somewhat
at random around the rest of the park, first stop Lost Gravity



Had ridden this a few times when it was new and really liked it - spotted that there was a SRQ available which wasn't there before so headed
into that - maybe 15 mins wait, which when I saw the main Q from the lift hill was a blessing as that looking pretty rammed at the time (and
its not really a high capacity ride).

There wasn't many in the SRQ as I exited so headed back around again for another go - slightly amazed by the inability of Dutch people to
count to 8, or 4 even as they fail to batch themselves efficiently, seriously guys if they let 8 people onto the platform its probably
not going to be be 1 person on row one and 7 of you on the back row is it?





SRQ on Speed of Sound too - not sure I'd have bothered otherwise as that also had a bit of a line, but straight on with the SRQ. Really
liking them using that properly then, they were not doing that on my last visit.



Had a spot of light lunch then took a spin on the big wheel (I like the big wheels) to take some pics and see if there were any good goon
shots of Untamed to be had.





But the goon shots of Untamed revealed something disheartening - had not seen it cycle for a bit and then when it did it was an empty train.

Uh oh. :(











Good views over the park from that wheel though and since the SLC was down last time I was here, figured that needed a reride.

Not the most well-regarded SLC is Condor, so I braced myself pretty firmly and (another SRQ working for me here) got it over with
fairly quickly and fairly painlessly.







There's quite a daft bit of park-layout around here, dead ends or paths that turn out to only be Qs but once you work out how to get behind
the SLC to the next coaster it has become time for an old favourite of mine, Goliath ; the seems-bigger-than-it-really-is Intamin mega
coaster.



I search for the SRQ for this, but pah they have let me down as there isn't one. The horror. Q isn't too bad (for a weekend) maybe 25 mins
so happy with that I reacquaint myself with this monster. Lovely stuff. Head back around again and once seated it only goes and breaks
down on me (all restrainted up about to despatch).



After about 10 mins they release us, send us back into the Q, send the now-empty train and unload the train that has been stuck on the brakes.
then they let us back on like nothing has happened. OK then.



Grab a ride on Xpress next, really hard to take pics of as the Q is all indoors and the ride itself is way off in a backstage area.

It's not bad, bit rougher than its Rock N Roller Coaster cousins I think but always worth a quick ride (again no SRQ but not a big Q for it).

Wander back to the Untamed area to see what is going on. They have made some effort to tart up the approaches to the new ride and all quite
nice it is too.



At least it has started to run again with people on board then.





But it is down to one train - boo, and the SRQ is packed. SO I head back to Goliath for a couple more rides of that instead.

Getting towards the end of the day, so have another look at the Untamed situation - one train being dispatched every 5 minutes, an hours worth
of people in the main Q and a full SRQ all saying "no" to me so I just wander into the Q to take some more pics of the slowly cycling
thing.















Barrel roll a bit hard to get a pic of;





Stuffed SRQ;





Very good ride on 2 trains running at speed (this morning), somewhat of a burden on one train with seemingly slow dispatches (this afternoon).
So didn't ride it again.

OK that was done. Decided I did not need to come back here in the morning as I'd got my fix of Untamed OK today, so that freed up tomorrow
morning for a return to Belgium (I had spotted on twitter that Fury had been running again).

Bye bye Walibi then - my basic euro-goon itch had been scratched.

Very good new ride, well done - get it back on 2 trains though it deserves that.



Still 6 flags outside.



One of my alternative plans for Monday morning (now abandoned because of Fury) was to get quite drunk in Zwolle on the Sunday night but having
wandered around a lot on Saturday and it wasn't that lively I also figured Sunday would be even less lively (it was) so satisfied myself
with just a bit of food and a couple of beers.



And I watched the final few overs of the Cricket World Cup sat on the steps outside that odd building (its a museum) on my phone as the "sports
bar" was not even showing it. Confused the odd cyclist passing by when I was whooping and jumping up and down at the final ball anyway.

 
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Monday 15th July - Contingency

It was strange then, whilst booking this trip and in my search for something to do on Monday, I had managed to completely miss something very
very obvious. I had thought Monday might be a contingency day if I needed a trip back to Walibi in the morning perhaps, or a lie in after too
many beers in Zwolle on the Sunday night, or a little cred-run around some of the Dutch +1/+2 parks, or even a trip to Wuppertal to have a look
at their suspended railway (had even researched that one to find its not running at the moment). So sometime on the Friday at Toverland I had
been mulling over the plan for Monday and was thinking about maybe dumping the hire car back at the airport in Düsseldorf and going into the
city for a couple of pre-flight beers since I had been in Düsseldorf 3 years ago and had liked the old town there for such behaviour. In fact
it had been the same time of year 3 years ago that I had been in Düsseldorf - and back then I had lamented my poor planning skills by turning
up one week after the big Kirmes had finished, what a dope I was back then eh? Hang on a moment, I'm here 2 weeks earlier than I was back then.

A quick Google and yes ; the big Kirmes in Düsseldorf opens this weekend and will be up and running on Monday. Result. Also what more dopey
planning to only realise this once I'm out here. FFS Dave get a grip.

Kirmes doesn't open until the afternoon but that'll be plenty of time to do something in the morning, hit the Kirmes in the afternoon before my
flight back to the UK in the evening. I really wish I had planned that as it was a really good plan, but I hadn't and it was all just lucky.

Fist things first then, back to Belgium sharpish in the morning - traffic was a bit more on the Monday morning than the Saturday night when I
did the trip in reverse but it was still a relatively easy couple of hours back to Bobbejaaland again.



Was quite a bit quieter today than Saturday and I was was straight in with my (free) ticket just time to hang around with a coffee waiting for
them to open up the gates so I could rush to Fury. Whilst hanging about I spotted on his TR that MestnyiGeroi was here today as well so pinged
a message to maybe meetup (you can relive all that drama here if you see fit).

The signs are better today then - no more "Technische storing / Problème technique" today.



Gates open, what punters there were all rushed towards Fury, me just strolling swiftly of course.

Only when I get to the ride we are all being turned away by a ride-op - patiently I wait until he can explain in a language I can understand
(so that's just English then, what a uncouth european I am) what is going on. "Opening at 11" he says. I can work with that OK then.

Train in on the track as well, that's an improvement on the weekend.



Since I've got an hour to kill, and its quite nearby I head off to have another go on the ridiculous indoor Revolution thingy, only as I head
in I spot that the VR-side is open. It has a different entrance and a different name ; Mount Mara. Being early there is no Q and I'm
straight on. The setup is that the front half of the stupidly long train is set up as Mount Mara and the back half as Revolution, they sit
you down and hand out Samsung VR-goggles which I strap on (unfortunately without my glasses as well so its a little blurry for me) and I
now appear to be sitting on a quad-bike in a maintenance shed of some sort. After a while (coaster boarding faff) I ride off on my virtual
quad bike and foolishly make my way up a rambling pathway up the side of a Volcano, like you do. Once at the top I just ride back down again
before I end up back in that shed.

Here's someone's YT if you care;

Wasn't awful, wasn't great. Preferred it without the VR of course. In fact so much more without the VR I went back around for another VR-less
ride. There were much more effects happening today compared to Saturday on the VR-less version, projections in the pyramid/building that we
ride around and such. So it seems that the whole installation is a bit flakey, VR working some days, effects working some days - hah.

Anyway that's occupied 1/2 an hour of my hours wait so I figure I'll just go back and hang around the Fury entrance until they open up.

But annoyingly as I head back I can see that its already running and there's already a Q built up - OK its not really annoying but had I known
it was going to open at 1030 not 1100 I wouldn't have been killing time on Revolution/Mount Mara.

Fury (eventually) then. About a 20 min Q ahead of me I can watch it cycle from the Q line and take a few pics. It's quite a confusing
layout to work out but they seem to be sending trains quite regularly - I'd understood that the Q split into a forwards only line and a
choose forwards/backwards line, but it seemed that not many people were voting backwards as I'd say I only saw one or two backwards runs as
I waited.



Nearly there...



Right side was choose-direction side but given the evidence I was not optimistic for that, and so it was that forwards was the way. Pretty fun
ride, nice forward/backwards/forwards launch that we are rather getting used to, but then followed by some reasonably big swooping hills and
inversions before you end up on a big spike into the sky and the brake run (kinda the reverse of the launch section).

I head straight back in for another go, but the line has built up a lot more than the previous time. And worse than that it breaks down for a
little while too.











It's only whilst in that second Q that I spot that MestnyiGeroi has responded to my earlier ping so we work out how to meet up when I get off
the ride (was about half way through the Q by then).

Opt for the choosing side again of course, and I end up with an empty seat next to me so I could cast two votes for backward this time - votes
are just buttons on the restraint with a forwards or backwards arrow on them - there is no indication which has won though until you are out
on the launch run (whether the turntable turns to the left or to the right).

My 2 votes obviously counted though as backwards won that time, much to the displeasure of some of the other peeps on the train - go in the
other Q then if you only want to go forwards! (to be fair there was nothing in the station indicating that that was how it worked).

Backwards was interesting then. The launch obviously now backwards/forwards/backwards. Felt that the first hill was a bit too snappy going
backwards but the rest of the ride was OK - certainly a pretty different experience though.

Met up with Mestnyi then - it not being too hard to spot the American goon hanging around the entrance :)

Headed back in for another go as he had not ridden it - Q line was about the same as the last time for me, so looked like 40 mins. As it turned
out was > an hour as it broke down a couple of times whilst we waited. Was nice to just chat geek-talk for a while though and that makes a Q
much more bearable - so nice to meet you Mestnyi, thanks for the diversion.

We rode forwards that time and that was still fun - decent coaster that, nothing exceptional and not really something that warranted the trip
on its own but combined with Toverland and Walibi definitely worth popping into Belgium to ride. I didn't even begrudge my 2 hour detour to get
back there that morning, well what else was I going to do on a Monday morning anyway?

I was probably a but behind schedule then, having wanted to get to the Kirmes for opening (2pm), but wasn't too worried as there was a lot of
time in the cunning (and not at all made up on a whim) plan.

Drove to Dusseldorf then, parked up in the park-and-ride set up for the Kirmes ; the fair takes place next to a residential area right on the
banks of the river just opposite the city centre so there is no nearby parking at all. The park-and-ride was off up the exhibition centre and
it was €13 to park up and get a 20 min bus into the city.

Park;


Ride;


So the fair was up and running by the time I got there, first impressions not so great as it was a sea of caravans :)



But once you get into the fairgrounds proper its all what you would expect ; wall-to-wall stalls and beer-sellers and dodgy spin and spew ride
and food stalls and more beer stalls and more rides. Would like to come to one of these on a busy evening and just drink some beer and mull
around (tried that at Winter Wonderland last year and it was good, I mean do it in Germany rather than Hyde Park).













Anyway there were coasters in here somewhere, the first one I encountered was Spinning Racer which was a reasonably large spinner that
would not have been out of place in a fixed park.









Next up (and a bit harder to spot than the bigger coasters!) was an awesome big apple. Willy der Wurm



Was awesome. Knock-off pixar themeing too?



OK this is more like it though



The last +1 for me is Alpina Bahn, a venerable old, huge Schwarzkopf - 1983 I believe and once the largest travelling coaster.



Quite liked that - like a loopless Olympia Looping. Olympia not-looping if you will.









Tell you what was cheeky at these Kirmes thing - they try to fill you up with beer and then charge you to use the bogs - they were all guarded
by bored looking attendants.



So Wilde Maus XXL was here too - and having ridden that a couple of times in London, I think its the best wild-mouse there is, so had
a spin on that too.



That big guy who turns up in London also appearing in the Q for the Maus





Right, last coaster of the trip.



Yay, Olympia Looping - so not that "München Looping" that turns up in London, the real deal here :)







Good stuff that. Despite only 5 car trains and those god-awful shoulder restraints that try to compress your spine at the end of the ride. I
like the looping then.

Consider riding something else (like the big wheel) but they are all really silly amounts of € and I feel that would be better spent on a beer
at the airport so head off back to the bus to the ride-and-park. This is only a few Km from the airport so I've soon dropped the car off...



...and found some food and Alt in an airport bar :)

 
Final Score

Toverland
Fēnix
Dwervelwind
Booster Bike
Toos-Express
Troy

Bobbejaanland
Revolution/Mount Mara
Speedy Bob
Oki Doki
Bob Express
Naga Bay
Typhoon
Dream Catcher
Fury

Walibi Holland
Untamed
Lost Gravity
Speed of Sound
Condor
Goliath
Xpress
Drako - could not be bothered

Größte Kirmes am Rhein
Spinning Racer
Willy der Wurm
Alpina Bahn
Wilde Maus XXL
Olympia Looping

--

That's 24 coasters, (+8, 16 ridden before and 0 SPITEs)

--

I also managed 4 different counties in one day on the Monday ; woke up in Holland, drove to Belgium, drove to Germany (via Holland again), flew back to UK. (geek)


Thank you and goodnight!



(would not have written all this up this weekend TBH, but its been dark and pissing down all weekend now so nothing else to do)
 
^ well if you could read, it was 2 weeks ago that I rode it, so not a month, just less than a fortnight ?
 
davidm said:
^ well if you could read, it was 2 weeks ago that I rode it, so not a month, just less than a fortnight ?
Click to expand...

Day 2, mate, me and Alex were there, day 2! Hanging out with that Bravenboer fella we was like pro goons. Ed and Bickerton were there on opening day. Even Will and Joshc managed day 3!
Fortnight mate? Well basic. ;)
 
Great report as always, thanks for sharing! I'm inspired to get some of the Netherlands parks (I have Efteling). How easy would you say it would be with public transport?
 
Years ago, I did Efteling and Walibi Holland on a weekend (was working in Utrecht for a couple of weeks) by public transport - and it that was all pretty easy (trains then buses - a specific Walibi shuttle-bus for there and just a local bus for Efteling). Not really sure for the other parks though ; I would GUESS that they are all do-able as public transport is pretty good generally but you'd have to research properly I would think.
 
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