The last day of BelGerAnd is here! And unfortunately it's not ending with a bang, but rather a slur of 'b's and 'a's in one word - Bobbejaanland. For those curious, it's pronounced Bob-e-yan-land (we didn't fully know this until about half way through the day).
Being close to the park meant that after our free breakfast, we arrived with plenty of time for the 10am opening. We got there at about 9:45 and let through the main gates, where we were immediately bombarded by a costumed character and member of staff forcing us to having a photo with them. Whilst this was happening, Adam had seen a hidden A4 sign saying that the park was closing at 6pm, instead of 7pm as advertised on the site. This filled us with some hope, since it indicated that the park might be quieter than the park originally expected, especially for a lovely (33 degrees) Saturday in July.
The entrance area can be likened to Towers Street at Alton I guess, in that there's a street with a few shops and stuff. At the end of the street, they had gates which would open at 10, after a little intro show my The Smurfs (yeah, bit random). So whilst we waited for the gates to open, we went to the customer service kiosk to ask where we got maps; turned out they were 2 euros each!? Fortunately I had some loose change I was trying to get rid of, so did get one, but the cost for a map is ridiculous.
My 'How on earth do I pronounce this?' face.
Even the Smurfs had no clue why they were there.
With the entrance show done, we headed into the park. We realised that a map wasn't really needed for the park quickly, since the park was just based around an oval lake, with nothing particular hidden. So we essentially just went round the lack and ticked off the rides as they came. Bobbejaanland had the most coasters out of all the parks on the trip, with 7. Just a shame that none of them were very good...
Our first ride of the day was Typhoon, the world's second Gerstlauer Eurofighter built. I was quite keen to try out another Eurofighter, and was looking forward to it. But the ride just doesn't really do a lot. After the standard (and VERY slow!) vertical left and 97 degree drop came a vertical loop, which was actually very intense and the highlight of the ride. The rest of the ride slowly meanders abouts, doing some turns, some twists and some inversions, but it just feels slow and boring. A real shame.
The coaster opened on 3 cars (out of a possible 5 by the looks of things), but at one point in the day, was down to 1 car it was so quiet! We didn't bother riding it again because there were other, better rides, on park.
We had planned to do the nearby Dizz, the Maurer spinner, afterwards, but since it opened at 10:50, apparently, we moved onto Revolution, the indoor coaster with a rather impressive 30 car train (and thus being able to hold 60 people per train), and a very long-winded spiral lift hill. I was expecting a coaster with such a ridiculous gimmick to be a bit boring, but it was surprisingly fun. It wasn't a 'good' ride (indeed, it just about scrapped onto my 'Top 20' list for coasters ridden during this trip), but it was fun.
The remaining coasters quickly followed. Speedy Bob, a Wild Mouse, was very meh, and it really shows how much theming can do to a ride, as it feels completely different to Rattlesnake. Dream Catcher, a suspended Vekoma coaster, was next, and was very forgettable. The junior coaster Oki Doki was a surprise; a nice fun coaster. The powered coaster Bob Express was also pretty neat, featuring an interesting enough layout. We eventually rode Dizz in the afternoon, but it was by far the worst spinning coaster I've done; the layout doesn't lend itself to allow the cars to spin that much..
Bob Express geek board.
We also watched the first showing of their new show, featuring magicians Rob and Emiel. I don't know how big they are in Belgium / Netherlands, but they have their own website, so they must have made a bit of a name for themselves I guess? Unfortunately the show wasn't very good (a lot of the stuff was very visual, so the language barrier wasn't much of an issue), though they did seem to be a bit nervous, and there were some crowds troubles. They did speak to us before the show though, after noticing we were English, and did have a bit of a chat with us.
The redeeming feature for Bobbejaanland though is in some of its other rides and, surprisingly, their indoor attractions. The park has many small attractions, like boat rides, water slides, slidey slides, and a few flat rides / dark rides. However, there are four that really stand out:
The first of which is El Rio, a park's rapids. With the majority of the layout hidden away, it was hard to tell what to expect. But the ride had a decent layout - featuring a whirlpool! - and got you a good level of wet. It was nice to see a decent rapids at the park.
What is most interesting about this ride though is the ferris wheel feature on its ride:
Don't get too excited; it's not in operation. Essentially, what would happen is a boat would travel onto a platform, the wheel would rotate, and the boat would go down a long, steep-ish drop, likely making a very nice splash. Unfortunately, the wheel hasn't been in operation for about 9 years, according to TPR, because it was an operational nightmare. Boats instead take a route around the wheel.
The next stand out ride was Indiana River, an indoor log flume. This is one of two log flumes on the park, though the second, outdoor, one is very meh. Given the looks of the outdoor rides on park, it was a pleasant surprise to see this ride so well themed. It was very jungle-like, and the majority of the route had some nice features to look out. The ride seems to get the front of the boat soaked, and the back of the boat stays dry (we tried a couple of different seating configurations on our goes and this always seemed to be the case), which is a bit odd.
(Above photo taken with flash on; the place feels a lot more atmospheric in low light!).
Another water ride which stands out is Banana Battle, an indoor splash battle. The layout has LOADS of interaction points, meaning that you get drenched. It's a great ride all in all, and even if it's a bit too wet for my liking, I still enjoyed it. The ride smelt a bit too much like chlorine for my liking though..
Finally, the best attraction on park is, by some way, The Forbidden Caves (warning: spoilers!). New for this year, it's an immersive tunnel ride. In a similar vain to Hex, the ride has 2 pre shows before the main ride. The premise of the ride, from what I gathered/remember, is that we're going on a Cave Tour, inspired by explorer Jasper Dubois. He had many adventures, but got lost on one whilst trying to find some treasure, so we're going to go find him.
The group is taken around by a 'tour guide' during the pre shows. Usually this is in Dutch, but on our second go, it was only us and an English-speaking French couple, so we were fortunate enough to be given the pre shows in English (lucky that the staff member spoke very good English too!). The first pre show takes place in an elevator, descending us down "several thousand meters very quickly", and the guide tells a few jokes. It was a standard effect, but done well. The second one involves a lot of talk about the treasure and the guide touches a found gem, which, in turn, activates loads of effects, with things shaking of the walls, loud noises, smoke, lights, and a evil force warning us to go away. It was very dramatic and very well done.
The ride itself then follows. Unfortunately, it's a bit of a letdown. It's either too hard to see the screen (if you sit too far back), or all the immersion is ruined if you sit too close to the front (you see the trough the ride carriage travels in, etc.). The video itself is alright and it's not a bad simulation experience, it's just that the ride hardware is very meh and average.
All in all, Forbidden Caves was a fab attraction, and its overall quality feels out of place at an average park like Bobbejaanland. Indeed, in terms of quality, and even theming, it wouldn't have felt out of place at some major parks that I've now visited! So kudos really need to be given to the park for opening such a solid attraction! The one thing which was a bit of a shame was that is opened at 1, and closed just before the park closed.
Overall Bobbejaanland thoughts: Bobbejaanland is a very odd park, and it's not surprising that a park of this size and quality cut it's opening times by an hour at such short notice; they clearly weren't getting the guests to warrant it. But, despite its overall average-ness, there are a couple of neat little rides there, and if Forbidden Caves is the sort of level of theming and quality we can expect from the park in the future, it might be one to surprise us all in a few years time.
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And so that's it! We left Bobbejaanland and hit the road for the long drive back to Calais. Funnily enough, we actually passed Plopsaland on the way, which made the trip feel nice and closed in a way. Unfortunately, when we got to Calais, we were told that no ferries had gone to Dover all week (because of the immigration problems at the time), and so we had to try our luck at Dunkirk. Fortunately we managed to get on a ferry there, but it meant we didn't get back till rather late (I tucked myself into bed at the cool time of half 3 in the morning...).
Thanks to anyone that did read all the entries or leave comments; t'is greatly appreciated!
