Ah Heide, the weird red-headed step-child of the Merlin machine from my last visit, with its strange mixture of music and atmosphere seemingly stolen from other parks. It lured me back with the prospect of completing the European B&M collection (of course, until Garda and Efteling’s ones open next year), and an attempt to ride Colossos again to see if I can actually like it.
First thing was first though, and that was to collect our German MAPs. The reasons for this were for the free entry
The first day proper of the trip led us to Hansa Park, a place which I really enjoyed on my previous visit 3 years ago. Unfortunately, not much has really changed to the park overall since my last visit aside from the entrance area being tarted up. But when you have one of the best Eurofighters around (potential damning with faint praise comments here), that sits in my top 10, of course a revisit was in order.
Upon arrival a group of enthusiasts were spotted, evidenced by their gooniforms a
Another park that’s changed a bit since my previous visit, what with Plopsa getting their hands on it recently, Holiday Park would serve as our penultimate park purely because it was easier to head down to Europa Park afterwards. We turned up to find it rather empty and a sign stating that the Spinning Barrels and Holly’s Autofahrt would both be spiting us. Was only when I returned I realised what had actually happened with the Barrel ride, grim.
We dossed around in the Museum for a bit looki
To celebrate my birthday there was only one park out of all the ones we visited that made sense to visit in the area we were in, and that was of course, Legoland Germany. With German MAP in hand, we headed in, though their gate organisation is a bit burdenous, as you have to use certain gates if you have a MAP, but this is a lottery when you’ve never visited before and you can’t see the signs to direct you when the main gate is down.
The opening ceremony was cute though, with the Ollie the Dr
Our start to the day did not go well. On our way to Tripsdrill, there was bountiful traffic on our motorway exit, which delayed us by an hour, arriving at the park just after 10 when the thrill rides opened instead of the 9am arrival time hoped for.
As a result, the first ride of the day was Karacho, Smiler’s German lapbar wearing cousin who’s actually still not finished at all (and won’t be fully completed till at least next year). So this was to be an interesting one anyway, as people are
I’m already regretting this decision for a massive 2 week holiday featuring 12 parks, mainly because this is gonna be a long as hell TR, and I don’t want to spend ALL my time at work typing it up either. But, the show must go on, so here we go, Germany.
A pleasant flight in with Germanwings (budget Lufthansa) led us to Hamburg and our Volkswagen Polo for the fortnight, and we drove off to the hotel. Quickly it was discovered that roadworks would be the bane of the holiday, as the Sat-Nav’s path
Day 3
The final day on park started with a character breakfast, as Pardoes did lots of interaction at an extremely peaceful level never seen at Disney. Once again our first port of call was Vogel Rok with 2 straight goes on the front before having to move back. Burdenous people!
And again like the day before, Joris was our next venture. We got there slightly before it was due to open, so I watched the engineers play around with the sensors on Flying Dutchman. Upon opening we got 4 goes, in
Day 2
The day started with turning on the TV and watching the Making of Documentary Efteling did for Joris, because it’s never too early to be a goon. After some breakfast it was time to join the queue of people waiting for ERT on the poorly laid-out paving slabs.
You had one job!
Eventually let in, we headed straight to Vogel Rok for some back row times, and since it was completely empty, hopped on again further up the train because we could.
We quickly moved on as it was nearly ope
Day 1
What better way to spend the UK closed season than by visiting a park that doesn’t close? Goodbye depressing Merlin situations and hello Efteling, who certainly are the opposite end of the ownership scale, what with being owned by a non-for-profit organisation who happily throw €42 million on a show.
So a blustery Saturday morning greeted us, with a flight to remember as the winds took hold of our plane throughout, providing an intense experience I never wish to repeat again in my life.
So we come to the end of what has been a rather disappointing year in the UK (there’s no two ways about that) it was up to the park’s abroad to show us how to do things, and that is something they most certainly did.
United Kingdom
I didn’t actually visit any non-Merlin UK parks this year, I nearly made it to Mingoland but fortunately that didn’t pan out.
The additions to the Merlin parks sounded good (at least if you weren’t Thorpe, who seemingly cannot think of suitably well thought out add
So I’ve discussed the UK parks, but what about the foreign ones I visited? Well here we goooooo!
Disneyland Paris
Well it snowed, oh BOY did it snow. Not that it ruined the enjoyment of course, there’s nothing more hilarious than riding Tower of Terror, getting to the top and the doors opening to a mini-blizzard. The park did extremely well dealing with the heavy snow and I take my hat off for the way they dealt with our booked restaurant situation.
The parks were their usually selves really,
Back again with more definitive decisions on whatever I've visited over this year. And it's been a VERY busy year, with trips far and wide (as far as the Netherlands at least), as once again Europe called to me on a much more regular basis than anywhere in the UK. Indeed, I only visited Towers once, and only because I would've been upset with that red dot on my Coaster-Count profile. Perhaps next year I'll look to complete the leftovers of the UK.
How does one define 60 odd park visits into one
The most important* awards are here! It’s been one hell of a year for me, and as a result rather than review things on a whole (it would take a very, very long time to go through each park) I’d prefer to just give out awards to the best and worst rides and parks I’ve experienced this year. So let’s get cracking:
Best Park – Efteling (Honourable Mentions – Phantasialand, Europa Park)
I fell completely in love with Efteling this year, everything that I want parks to do oozes from the place. It s
In what will probably be an unsurprising development, our 2nd park of the weekend was Plopsaland, because we all love it to bits.
It also has an immense amount of new things at the place this year, from a new MASSIVE theatre, two new rides in a newly themed area, and two rethemed rides (the kiddie cred and onion boats) which is really fantastic to see. Add this to the hotel development which is on-going and it does seem like the park is going places.
They had a good amount of Halloween
So after a month of going to all the Merlin Halloween events the ‘last’ weekend of the month needed to be something different. As such, discussions were had and plans put in place for a quick jaunt over the Channel on a Friday afternoon to enjoy a weekend of Belgian creds and scary things.
The Saturday was at Walibi, which has had an interesting life it must be said, and recently rebranded itself to a rather different park theme of a music band.
They also hold one of Belgium’s premier Ha
Day 3
And lo, the final day approached as we groggily awoke for one last B&M whorage session. However there was some unfinished business to attend to first, so we checked out the hotel, dumped off our bags and headed in to Baco once more.
It was announcing technical difficulties…
This turned out to be the addition of the second train however, so we waited it out and before long we were winging our way out of the station on the front row. The pre-show began, the brake fins dropped,
Day 2
A lovely buffet breakfast began our long second day at the park, which was coincidentally the first day of their Halloween event. At 10 we walked very quickly past Baco and through Sesame Street. In order to faff longer, we popped on the wonderfully named Magic Fish ride, one of those Wave Racer things which was reasonably enjoyable.
Afterwards we sat in that pathway leading to China and mused until Khan roared into life, and we duly skipped the queue twice before doing exact
An Express visit to Port Aventura
Day 1
They always say you should keep an eye out for good deals in life, theme parks being no exception, so when Port Aventura had an offer for 50% hotel stays I leapt at the chance to revisit the park, namely for Shambhala.
A VERY early Friday morning was the backdrop to our journey via Gatwick and Barcelona, and after eventually finding the coach to the hotel, we arrived at the park armed with quite possibly the best value for money unlimited Express Passes
