Will
Strata Poster
ROAR!
As many of you probably know, I recently returned from the Netherlands where my first proper coaster trip of 2019 took place. For obvious reasons, this had been on the cards for a fair while.
Additionally – apologies if this isn’t up to my usual standard of writing. Much of it was scribbled with pen and paper on my journey home, though it is unlikely to be typed up and posted any earlier than Monday evening!
Anyway – I left the house shortly after 4 AM on Wednesday, bound for Toverland via Manchester & Amsterdam. The journey to Amsterdam was easy and uneventful, but alas we were stuck on the runway at Manchester (burdenous Terminal 3) for around an hour, meaning it was almost 11 before I landed.
The hire car (a dull but adequate Skoda Fabia with no steering wheel audio controls, but good air conditioning) was also acquired and I hit the road. It’s around 2 hours from Schiphol to Toverland, not helped by variable speed limits.
At length, I pulled into the car park behind Troy and headed inside via the new Avalon entrance, immediately liking what I saw. A very real part of me wanted to hit the coasters straightaway, but in my haste to get to the park, I’d made my usual mistake of arriving starving and dehydrated, my last food and drink being at least 5 hours previously. The inevitable wandering in search of sustenance commenced but as it was a quiet day, many outlets were closed else practically sold out, leading me to give up and end up at the pleasant looking sit down restaurant beneath Fenix. This was quiet and reasonably priced, but as good was cooked to order, it took a fair while. I had a burger and chips which were fine but nothing to get excited about – and then at almost 2PM, it was time to head for the first ride of the trip. As excited as I’d immediately become upon seeing Troy, there was a new B&M to be had and therefore my first destination was a non-brainer. In fact, with limited time at my disposal, the plan was to whore just 3 rides – maybe fitting in the high ropes course if possible.
It’s worth mentioning at this point that my last visit to Toverland had been the Pass the Duchy Live back in April 2011 (indeed, it’s the only day of that trip of which I have particularly happy memories, many of which came back to me as I wandered). Anyway, the point is that I could tell the park had both grown and changed significantly – both Avalon and the Dwervelwind area are pleasant to be in and stunning to look at, particularly in the sunshine. It was apparent that Toverland had taken stock of two nearby competitors and reacted accordingly. This continued into the Efteling/Europa style indoor queue line and station décor. Despite the apparent number of school trips on park, the queue started in the station and would have been negligible had there been more than one train in operation (sadly, this was the case with both major coasters).
Fenix itself quickly established itself as my favourite wingrider (no mean feat considering my fondness for Swarm) – it had none of the judderiness of its German cousin and seemed to have struck the perfect balance of remaining thrilling whilst not frightening away the park’s target audience. I really like the smooth, flowing layout and how well it interacts with the attractive scenery – like many people, the only criticism I can find is that it’s too damn short and hit the brake run long before I was ready for it. The obvious course of action was therefore to re-ride on the other side of the station (though I wasn’t in as much of a hurry as the various children who nearly stampeded me on the exit ramp!) I concluded that I preferred the outside seats on the right hand side of the train – probably something to do with the movement transitioning into the dive loop.
With one of the most anticipated coasters of the 8 on this trip ticked off, I allowed myself a while to wander around, soak up the scenery, take pictures and generally goon out before I inevitably wound up at Dwervelwind, which I’d also heard great things about. This area too was pleasant, with another short queue and well operated ride – it was clearly that Mack’s spinning rides had evolved a long way since the dreaded Euromir as this was a great deal smoother and less vicious on the stomach than many spinning coasters – I’d rank it alongside Dragon’s Fury and Tornado – the onboard audio was also fabulously immersive, but once again, the layout was unsatisfyingly SHORT!
A bit more exploring led me to Joy (sorry, Troy) which I had great memories of from 2011 and which has always sat comfortably in my top 5 wooden coasters, making Wickerman seem that little bit more mediocre. Here, the queue started on the stairs, meaning around a 20-minute wait due to the tedious one train operations. There were many loud children in the station and their presence displeased me. I managed a seat near the back and a smiley blonde girl in glasses helped me with my bag and restraint before attempting conversation with me in Dutch. A couple of people had warned me that time had taken its toll on Troy and it had become rough, but I was pleased to note that this rumour was unfounded. Certainly, it was wild and had a certain amount of unrelenting aggression to it, but the thoroughly padded seats ensure none of is painful or unpleasant – indeed, it was actually even better than I remembered it – clearly the best ride of the day despite the two new additions. Now, extremely satisfied with where my life was at even if I had been thrown around a bit, I resisted the urge to run around and ride again, electing instead for a sit down and a smoke behind the booster bike – I had not ridden this since 2010 and intended to keep it that way!
It was now a little before 3PM and I was trying to work out how to get the maximum Troy and Fenix out of the next 2 hours while leaning on the fence overlooking the log flume; it was at this point that I heard a familiar voice. I wasn’t as surprised to see @Howie and Alex as I might have been, having seen from Facebook that they’d been at Walibi the previous day – thus I ended up with 2 unexpected companions for the remainder of the day!
Part of the reason I’d waited so long to return to Toverland was that I wasn’t sure how well it would work as a solo trip, with there being a lot of indoor toys that a lone adult male couldn’t really get away with playing with in a park infested with school children – in fact, as good an afternoon as I had, I’d love to return with a bigger group. However, it WAS nice not to get abandoned in the middle of a lake – and I still got to dick around on a few wobbly bridges.
Howie & Alex were headed for Fenix and this seemed like a reasonable course of action, so I elected to join them, having goon chat along the way as we hadn’t properly spoken in person before. We had a quick ride on the right side of Fenix, with the other two hyping me up for Thursday’s ride on Untamed. This was followed by a re-ride on Dwervelwind although Alex was not hugely keen on this.
Something of a surprise awaited us at the ride exit – it was the smiley blonde girl from Troy who had also befriended Howie in the Fenix station when she’d overheard us talking about Phantasialand. It turned out she was an ‘enthusiast in training’ who was visiting Toverland alone for the umpteenth time this season and who was very excited to meet people she could talk coasters with, even if we were all around twice her age.
As such, we somehow ended up as a very random group of 4 for the last hour of the day; we did provide our new companion with the name of this site and explain that we already had a handful of Dutch speakers and she wrote the details in her Toverland book, which was full of doodles of rides and notes from previous trips – clearly exactly the sort of person we like around here – AND she wasn’t talking into a camera the whole time!
Apparently, Blitzbahn had been closed for much of the day, so now the others wanted to ride it – I wasn’t convinced as it had a 35-minute wait and I’ve had a healthy distrust of these rides since the Oakwood incident in 2005, but I eventually caved to peer pressure. The queue passed fairly quickly despite being too warm and a bit corridory – we also learned of Howie’s chicken fetish. As for the ride, I wondered if it had changed in 8 years as it was much better than I remembered, with more colourful ride cars and a surprise launch. There were even little pops of airtime on the small drops, meaning it had perhaps been worth the wait. I noticed Toverland_Girl (we never did get her real name!) had set a lap time 2 seconds faster than the rest of us, but this is probably down to weight rather than technique!
It was 4:45 and with ride close looming upsettingly near, I insisted that the day was to end with Troy and as this still had around a 10 minute wait by the time we arrived, it was to be our final ride of the day (though we COULD have stayed on, except that people were in our row in the station, awaiting the day’s final train). Nevertheless, this was just as good as before and a great way to ensure it was impossible for us not to end the day (the trip, in the case of Howie and Alex who were now heading home) with smiles across our faces.
We said goodbye to our new friend and then headed back towards our respective cars for goodbyes of our own – I was bound for Zwolle. On the 2 hour drive, I had plenty of time to reflect on the fab afternoon I’d just had – indeed, if I had a regret on this trip, it was not switching Walibi and Toverland to allow me a full day at the latter since it would prove by far the best park of the trip. Indeed, as I controversially concluded, the addition of Avalon had made it my favourite Dutch park, though perhaps much of this was to do with my good mood, the perfect weather and the fact that I seem to deal with sleep deprivation a lot better in my own company. A quick stop at Aldi for bread, water and sausage rolls and it was time to curl up in bed in front of Netherlands v Sweden in the WWC. The Mercure Hotel in Zwolle comes recommended except for the bizarre ‘ladies only’ parking spaces (I know what you’re thinking, and no, they weren’t) and the fact that my double bed was obviously comprised of two single mattresses meaning I spent the night falling into the gap between them. There was also air conditioning – though I needn’t have worried about the European heatwave that’s been on the news lately – 24 was the highest temperature I saw and that was moreorless ideal.
End of Part 1 – here are some photos. Apparently, they're all of Fenix...
As many of you probably know, I recently returned from the Netherlands where my first proper coaster trip of 2019 took place. For obvious reasons, this had been on the cards for a fair while.
Additionally – apologies if this isn’t up to my usual standard of writing. Much of it was scribbled with pen and paper on my journey home, though it is unlikely to be typed up and posted any earlier than Monday evening!
Anyway – I left the house shortly after 4 AM on Wednesday, bound for Toverland via Manchester & Amsterdam. The journey to Amsterdam was easy and uneventful, but alas we were stuck on the runway at Manchester (burdenous Terminal 3) for around an hour, meaning it was almost 11 before I landed.
The hire car (a dull but adequate Skoda Fabia with no steering wheel audio controls, but good air conditioning) was also acquired and I hit the road. It’s around 2 hours from Schiphol to Toverland, not helped by variable speed limits.
At length, I pulled into the car park behind Troy and headed inside via the new Avalon entrance, immediately liking what I saw. A very real part of me wanted to hit the coasters straightaway, but in my haste to get to the park, I’d made my usual mistake of arriving starving and dehydrated, my last food and drink being at least 5 hours previously. The inevitable wandering in search of sustenance commenced but as it was a quiet day, many outlets were closed else practically sold out, leading me to give up and end up at the pleasant looking sit down restaurant beneath Fenix. This was quiet and reasonably priced, but as good was cooked to order, it took a fair while. I had a burger and chips which were fine but nothing to get excited about – and then at almost 2PM, it was time to head for the first ride of the trip. As excited as I’d immediately become upon seeing Troy, there was a new B&M to be had and therefore my first destination was a non-brainer. In fact, with limited time at my disposal, the plan was to whore just 3 rides – maybe fitting in the high ropes course if possible.
It’s worth mentioning at this point that my last visit to Toverland had been the Pass the Duchy Live back in April 2011 (indeed, it’s the only day of that trip of which I have particularly happy memories, many of which came back to me as I wandered). Anyway, the point is that I could tell the park had both grown and changed significantly – both Avalon and the Dwervelwind area are pleasant to be in and stunning to look at, particularly in the sunshine. It was apparent that Toverland had taken stock of two nearby competitors and reacted accordingly. This continued into the Efteling/Europa style indoor queue line and station décor. Despite the apparent number of school trips on park, the queue started in the station and would have been negligible had there been more than one train in operation (sadly, this was the case with both major coasters).
Fenix itself quickly established itself as my favourite wingrider (no mean feat considering my fondness for Swarm) – it had none of the judderiness of its German cousin and seemed to have struck the perfect balance of remaining thrilling whilst not frightening away the park’s target audience. I really like the smooth, flowing layout and how well it interacts with the attractive scenery – like many people, the only criticism I can find is that it’s too damn short and hit the brake run long before I was ready for it. The obvious course of action was therefore to re-ride on the other side of the station (though I wasn’t in as much of a hurry as the various children who nearly stampeded me on the exit ramp!) I concluded that I preferred the outside seats on the right hand side of the train – probably something to do with the movement transitioning into the dive loop.
With one of the most anticipated coasters of the 8 on this trip ticked off, I allowed myself a while to wander around, soak up the scenery, take pictures and generally goon out before I inevitably wound up at Dwervelwind, which I’d also heard great things about. This area too was pleasant, with another short queue and well operated ride – it was clearly that Mack’s spinning rides had evolved a long way since the dreaded Euromir as this was a great deal smoother and less vicious on the stomach than many spinning coasters – I’d rank it alongside Dragon’s Fury and Tornado – the onboard audio was also fabulously immersive, but once again, the layout was unsatisfyingly SHORT!
A bit more exploring led me to Joy (sorry, Troy) which I had great memories of from 2011 and which has always sat comfortably in my top 5 wooden coasters, making Wickerman seem that little bit more mediocre. Here, the queue started on the stairs, meaning around a 20-minute wait due to the tedious one train operations. There were many loud children in the station and their presence displeased me. I managed a seat near the back and a smiley blonde girl in glasses helped me with my bag and restraint before attempting conversation with me in Dutch. A couple of people had warned me that time had taken its toll on Troy and it had become rough, but I was pleased to note that this rumour was unfounded. Certainly, it was wild and had a certain amount of unrelenting aggression to it, but the thoroughly padded seats ensure none of is painful or unpleasant – indeed, it was actually even better than I remembered it – clearly the best ride of the day despite the two new additions. Now, extremely satisfied with where my life was at even if I had been thrown around a bit, I resisted the urge to run around and ride again, electing instead for a sit down and a smoke behind the booster bike – I had not ridden this since 2010 and intended to keep it that way!
It was now a little before 3PM and I was trying to work out how to get the maximum Troy and Fenix out of the next 2 hours while leaning on the fence overlooking the log flume; it was at this point that I heard a familiar voice. I wasn’t as surprised to see @Howie and Alex as I might have been, having seen from Facebook that they’d been at Walibi the previous day – thus I ended up with 2 unexpected companions for the remainder of the day!
Part of the reason I’d waited so long to return to Toverland was that I wasn’t sure how well it would work as a solo trip, with there being a lot of indoor toys that a lone adult male couldn’t really get away with playing with in a park infested with school children – in fact, as good an afternoon as I had, I’d love to return with a bigger group. However, it WAS nice not to get abandoned in the middle of a lake – and I still got to dick around on a few wobbly bridges.
Howie & Alex were headed for Fenix and this seemed like a reasonable course of action, so I elected to join them, having goon chat along the way as we hadn’t properly spoken in person before. We had a quick ride on the right side of Fenix, with the other two hyping me up for Thursday’s ride on Untamed. This was followed by a re-ride on Dwervelwind although Alex was not hugely keen on this.
Something of a surprise awaited us at the ride exit – it was the smiley blonde girl from Troy who had also befriended Howie in the Fenix station when she’d overheard us talking about Phantasialand. It turned out she was an ‘enthusiast in training’ who was visiting Toverland alone for the umpteenth time this season and who was very excited to meet people she could talk coasters with, even if we were all around twice her age.
As such, we somehow ended up as a very random group of 4 for the last hour of the day; we did provide our new companion with the name of this site and explain that we already had a handful of Dutch speakers and she wrote the details in her Toverland book, which was full of doodles of rides and notes from previous trips – clearly exactly the sort of person we like around here – AND she wasn’t talking into a camera the whole time!
Apparently, Blitzbahn had been closed for much of the day, so now the others wanted to ride it – I wasn’t convinced as it had a 35-minute wait and I’ve had a healthy distrust of these rides since the Oakwood incident in 2005, but I eventually caved to peer pressure. The queue passed fairly quickly despite being too warm and a bit corridory – we also learned of Howie’s chicken fetish. As for the ride, I wondered if it had changed in 8 years as it was much better than I remembered, with more colourful ride cars and a surprise launch. There were even little pops of airtime on the small drops, meaning it had perhaps been worth the wait. I noticed Toverland_Girl (we never did get her real name!) had set a lap time 2 seconds faster than the rest of us, but this is probably down to weight rather than technique!
It was 4:45 and with ride close looming upsettingly near, I insisted that the day was to end with Troy and as this still had around a 10 minute wait by the time we arrived, it was to be our final ride of the day (though we COULD have stayed on, except that people were in our row in the station, awaiting the day’s final train). Nevertheless, this was just as good as before and a great way to ensure it was impossible for us not to end the day (the trip, in the case of Howie and Alex who were now heading home) with smiles across our faces.
We said goodbye to our new friend and then headed back towards our respective cars for goodbyes of our own – I was bound for Zwolle. On the 2 hour drive, I had plenty of time to reflect on the fab afternoon I’d just had – indeed, if I had a regret on this trip, it was not switching Walibi and Toverland to allow me a full day at the latter since it would prove by far the best park of the trip. Indeed, as I controversially concluded, the addition of Avalon had made it my favourite Dutch park, though perhaps much of this was to do with my good mood, the perfect weather and the fact that I seem to deal with sleep deprivation a lot better in my own company. A quick stop at Aldi for bread, water and sausage rolls and it was time to curl up in bed in front of Netherlands v Sweden in the WWC. The Mercure Hotel in Zwolle comes recommended except for the bizarre ‘ladies only’ parking spaces (I know what you’re thinking, and no, they weren’t) and the fact that my double bed was obviously comprised of two single mattresses meaning I spent the night falling into the gap between them. There was also air conditioning – though I needn’t have worried about the European heatwave that’s been on the news lately – 24 was the highest temperature I saw and that was moreorless ideal.
End of Part 1 – here are some photos. Apparently, they're all of Fenix...
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