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Last week I decided to do a couple of European parks for the first time, Plopsaland and Parc Asterix. Ride To Happiness has been high on my bucket list for a long time and I've always wanted to do Asterix, especially since Toutatis opened. I looked at a few different options, originally I was going to do Walibi Holland and Efteling too but doing this solo meant it would’ve been quite expensive, and I didn’t know how comfortable I was going to be driving in Europe on my own. Another option I looked at was Liseberg but flights from Gatwick were about £200 for a return, so I could do Plopsa and Parc Asterix for the same price as 1 day/night at Liseberg. I knew it was the holidays but looking at the queues in previous years, that week didn’t seem particularly busy. Day 1 - Plopsaland I set off around 5am for the 8:15am ferry over to Calais, which arrived in Calais for 11am, aiming to get to Plopsa for 12ish. I could’ve got an earlier one to get there for opening, but it was open till 7pm and I've heard you didn’t really need a full day there anyway, and I didn’t want to knacker myself out too much. I’d heard that food and drinks were very expensive at Plopsa so I went to the supermarket a couple of mins away to grab myself some lunch before I went in. I drove past Plopsa to get to the supermarket and realized how close it was, so I decided to leave my car parked at the supermarket and walk to the park (took about 5 mins) which saved me 15 euros on parking. I got to the park at about 12:15, and there was obviously 1 ride I was going to go for first, Ride to Happiness. First impressions of the park were nice, the entrance plaza was cool. On my way over, I noticed there was some work taking place on Heidi on the turnaround section so it was looking unlikely that it was going to open. Turns out it had actually been closed all month, but reopened the day after I went, on the Friday. I wasn’t too fussed about not getting on it, the main reason for visiting was Ride to Happiness and with the park being very easy to get to I’ll most probably be back there at some point anyway. I love the plaza and the area music, very calming. The food unit did have pop music playing though which was a shame though. Brilliant theming in the queue, it was running 1 train but only queued around 10 minutes, I went straight for the backrow which is normally my favorite seat on most coasters. The trains are comfy, and it was interesting to see the bars come down automatically so there was no need for the staff to check restraints. The trains also have an onboard sound track and lighting. I came off my first ride feeling very meh. It was good, and different to any coaster I've done before, and absolutely loved the on-board soundtrack, that really added to it. But was I blown away? Absolutely not. Didn’t live up to the hype for me at all. After that I decided to have a wander around the rest of the park, did the log flume and Drakk the parks mack powered coaster which were good. Dinosplash the log flume was cool, although the water was an interesting color… Next I did Nachtwacht Flyer which is the parks Starflyer, as I thought it would be a good way to see the rest of the park, and then went onto do Anubis, a Gerstlauer launch coaster. I did go past a couple of other little coasters but these had large queues so decided to go back to them later. Anubis has a brilliant station building and indoor queue line, running 2 trains with no queue. This was a good little coaster, the launch is very snappy and the top hat is great, however the ending is a little dull. It was very smooth for a Gerstlauer. I did the Superspash as I noticed people didn’t look particularly wet, which just consisted of a lift, drop and then a slow return to the station. The lift is quite cool though. I also did the Big Wave which was the parks Disk’O coaster. This was the best themed one I've ever seen, even had a little water feature on it and had great interaction with the nearby Splash battle. At this point I had pretty much done the rest of the park so I went back to the Ride To Happiness, this time I went for the front row. Now, this absolutely blew me away, completely different to my ride earlier. I was laughing and smiling to myself the whole way round, and the hangtime you get on that first inversion on the front car is great. It's rare I prefer a ride on the front row but getting pushed into the airtime moments and other elements on this was better in my opinion. The rest of the day just consisted of lapping this, with the occasion ride on Anubis. It didn’t really build up much of a queue all day and in total managed to get on it over 20 times. Operations were okay, but with no batcher and no effort from the staff to fill up seats there were a lot going round empty. I even had a car of 4 to myself at one point even though there was a queue. The queue was around 10 minutes most of the day and peaked about 30 minutes at one point. At first I wasn’t really taking empty seats due to the language barrier but as the day went on, I got more confident getting on earlier trains taking empty seats which saved a lot of time with it being on 1 train. Each ride I was laughing the whole way round, and left me smiling on the brake run. Every single ride is different no matter where you sit, and experiencing all the different elements facing a different way each time is so fun. Its so re-rideable, the front car was definitely my favorite. The airtime at the end of the ride is brilliant. Everyone is so happy on the break run and the on board soundtrack fits it perfectly. It is a little inconsistent though, and some rides on it are better than others. The queue closed at 7pm, and the staff kindly let me stay in the station for a few rides taking empty seats. Sunset rides on this were brilliant, it didn’t quite get a dark ride but the area looks brilliant in the dark. Lots of great lighting, including lighting on the train too. I exited the park, grabbed some dinner and had a 2.5 hour drive to my hotel for the night near Parc Asterix ready for the following morning. Overall, I had a good day. Shame about not getting on Heidi but I'll be back. Plopsaland is a charming little park, and although I was originally a little disappointed with Ride to Happiness I finished the day absolutely loving it. Plopsaland is obviously more aimed for kids so without Ride To Happiness I probably wouldn't return, but with how easy it is to get there, I'll definitely be back.

Plopsa is a lovely little park and RtH has obviously been such a wise move for them. I've been to the park 3 times since its opened and never seen it on 2 trains (which included a trip in the middle of summer and it on a 1hr+ queue...), so hopefully they can operate and maintain it appropriately. Anubis is slept on a bit these days. Good ride. I'm intrigued to see what they do next. Their indoor Bumba World has no doubt filled a gap / extending the offering for younger audiences, but I thought it was a bit rubbish in comparison to the Maya Land, with the dark ride being quite weak. The park could probably benefit from a new, more modern, high throughput 1m restriction coaster. Vekoma/Gerstlauer have good offerings on that front. Big issue I have with Plopsa - as you noted - is the cost. Food is expensive and not good quality. Park tickets are reasonable enough, but then with parking, etc, it's not cheap. I've noticed that they've been doing more UK-focused marketing lately, so they do seem to be capitalising on their location more, so it'll be interesting to see what they do next. Looking forward to your thoughts on Asterix!!

I was there Monday and to be honest had a good day but the problem is, I went in fully knowing it was going to be a disaster. For thousands of others it's incredibly disappointing. I went three weeks ago and everything ran smoothly with no issues at all. The moment a bit of pressure takes place, that's it, the park struggles. With all the ride removals over the last decade, there is no buffer for when things go wrong and the whole of CBeebies land closing at 5 and no Congo River Rapids, it just compounds the issues. Something not really ever mentioned at the time but, at 10am opening day, Nemesis Reborn was really the only rollercoaster open on time. Everything else aside from Wicker Man was delayed opening. And there's no easy fix. I think all of the things Benin mentioned plus extra procedures introduced after the Smiler crash just leads to Towers unable to prevent shutdowns and a quick recovery from them.