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Benin's Bits & Bobs

A blog by Benin in General

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About this blog

Assorted What-Nots

Entries in this blog

Benin's Take on 2013 - UK Parks

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
  • Benin

Efteling - A weekend of Fairies, Dragons and Pancakes - Day 2

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
  • Benin

Germany Road(works) Trip - Day 1 - Hamburg and the DOM

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
  • Benin

Germany Road(works) Trip - Day 2 - Hanseatic Gerstlauers

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
  • Benin

Germany Road(works) Trip - Day 5 - Driving at the Beck and call

We were done with Hamburg, so today was a day of driving as we headed to our next base of operations in Dortmund. We decided that because there wasn’t much option of things to do in Dortmund as we were staying in a soulless industrial estate and Dortmund isn’t known for having much in the way of touristy stuff (Football stadium aside, but it had a game on that if I’d known about I would’ve gone to), we would visit Schloss Beck instead to pass a few hours. Schloss Beck is a tiny little park a st
  • Benin

Germany Road(works) Trip - Day 6 - Express Pass Interest

Movie Park Germany was the park of the day, having been a stone’s throw from it the day before, so it was a bit weird to drive to it for a second day in a row. Upon arrival I grew frustrated by the park not opening up the turnstiles prior to the official opening, mostly due to the lack of space available to the large crowd building up outside and the low number of actual turnstiles available. Does annoy me greatly when they could instead let people into the park, get some early sales from a c
  • Benin

Germany Road(works) Trip - Day 8 - PHANtastic! Part 2

The second day at Phantasialand started similarly to the first, parking in the China car park and straight off to Black Mamba. A front row ride was in order since it was unlikely another chance would raise its head, front rows are very useful wake-up calls. Over to Wuze Town, and as Fear was having the morning off, Winjas Force was ridden, followed by another go on Tittle Tattle Tree. We then rode lots of the new Wuze Town stuff that has been added over the years, starting with the Monora
  • Benin

Germany Road(works) Trip - Day 10 - Tripping Chimps

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
  • Benin

Germany Road(works) Trip - Day 11 – Die Tage ist meine Geburtstag

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
  • Benin

Germany Road(works) Trip - Day 12 – A Holiday on my holiday

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
  • Benin

Only Teardrops in Denmark PTR - Day 1 - Copenhagen

A trip designed to visit one of the lesser countries in Europe known for its parks, even if it has 6 big parks, including one of the most visited in the continent, not much ever seems to come out of Denmark, so as such, this trip was created, organised and visited. Day 1 - Arrival and Copenhagen We arrived in the afternoon to a warm and humid Denmark, a certain surprise to the 4 of us who were travelling along, and it wasn't long until we realised the Danish way of life was completely differen
  • Benin

Only Teardrops in Denmark - Day 2 - Tivoli Gardens

Day 2 - Tivoli Gardens After an afternoon of lovely sunshine and warmth, the Sunday morning was the complete opposite, with rain pelting down as we prepared to venture into our first park of the trip. As we waited outside the park, the Gumball 500 decided to venture forth, so we had some entertainment building up to the park opening. The park opened at 11, but the majority of rides opened at 11:30, so we hid under a building and awaited our first ride and coaster to open Daemonen. Th
  • Benin

Only Teardrops in Denmark - Day 3 - Bon Bon Land

Day 3 – Bon Bon Land A park that is relatively infamous and well known from a certain American coaster site, Bon Bon Land is essentially famous for being silly. With farting dogs, defecating seagulls and various other creatures doing random stuff; it’s a park I’ve been interested to visit to see what the hype is all about. So we hopped into the Nissan of Narcissism and directed by Cassandra the Sat-Nav and were taken off the motorway into the middle of nowhere, a theme certainly to be followed
  • Benin

Only Teardrops in Denmark - Day 4b - Bakken

Day 4b – Bakken After a morning of alcohol we returned to the car and ventured off to Bakken, the world’s oldest amusement park. Set within an old hunting ground the woodland setting is quite nice, although the layout of the car park is little to be desired. We went in, purchased our wristbands and found a place to eat whilst we waited for Tornado to open at 2. It did, and we were ready to experience the World’s first (and only) Intamin Spinning Coaster. Tornado is a very fast spinning
  • Benin

Only Teardrops in Denmark - Day 6 - Djurs Sommerland

Day 6 - Djurs Sommerland After a long rainy drive to Aarhus the day after was nice and sunny for our next venture into the middle of nowhere for a theme park. Djurs seemed to be a 'true' theme park in comparison to the parks so far, so I was intrigued to see how they would go with it. We arrived into the rather empty car park and ventured to the gates. The park opened, and we ventured to the nearest coaster, and a highly rated one to boot, that of Piraten. Apparently the worst Mega-
  • Benin

Only Teardrops in Denmark - Day 7 - Legoland Billund

Day 7 – Legoland Billund Now here was an interesting one, the Merlin park of the group, a park that is usually a burden to visit in the UK, how would the original fare? Would it be smothered in adverts? Would it be full of low throughput rides? Would we hate it for being part of a massive corporate entity? Answers are found and more… After once again navigating the emptiness of Denmark and a surprise car park appearing out of nowhere (next door to Billund’s own airport) we had arrived and awai
  • Benin

Only Teardrops in Denmark - Day 8 - Farup Sommerland

Day 8 – Farup Sommerland And so the final day, we packed up and departed Aarhus northwards. We eventually arrived after more venturing through country roads and paid upon arrival in the car (which took us all by surprise, fortunately we were prepared for this) and ended up in the car park, which strangely sits in the middle of the park, allowing for some good views of the two main coasters. Our first destination was Lynet, the Gerstlauer launched, to which I was excited for because Anu
  • Benin

It's like a fairytale or something... In Bruges - Day 2 - Bellewaerde

Day 2 – Bellewaerde Park Time for coasters! And with a brand new one it was time to head along to Belle, via several country roads and an awful diversion, we eventually arrived at the destination (N.B. There is an easier route to take to get to the park we discovered on our way back, blergh)… Formerly a safari park, this place certainly shares similarities with both Chessington and Flamingoland, but let’s not set our hopes too low, and go and ride the first coaster of the day (in order t
  • Benin

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