JoshC.

Germany trip - Part 1/3
From 19th May to 25th May 2016
With Loose Steele Bluth
Parks visited: Hansa Park, Heide Park, Phantasialand
**Photos to be added at a later date**
 
Edit:  SPOILER TAGS ARE NOT WORKING AT PRESENT, SO BEWARE THERE ARE MANY SPOILERS
 
We hopped on the plane at LHR being keen for the parks again, Got the metro from HAM woo! Am I getting airtime?  Jumped out the train it's Hamburg Central Station, checked in the hotel I can see the free mouthwash.  We are both so tired, everybody seems so gerrrman
 
Day 1 - Hansa Park
 
Woke up early to ensure we had time to buy train tickets and catch a train to get to the park on time:  After buying inter-rail passes (although just for Germany), we took two trains to get from Hamburg to Sierksdorf and had a short 10 minute walk to the park.  Scanned our online-purchased tickets and were in just before main ride opening.
 
General points about the park:
 
⁃              Open 9-6 with most rides opening at 10
⁃              Not a big park, mostly family orientated
⁃              All rides were walk-on during our visit as the park was empty
⁃              Did not see a broken down or SBNO ride all day
 
 
Der Schwur von Kärnan (The Oath of Kärnan) - Spoiler tags are being a bit temperamental on this post, so I am warning you below
 
This was the newest ride, opened last year.  It is a Gerstlauer infinity coaster and whilst not fully themed yet boasts many unique qualities
World's only hyper coaster with an inversion World's first and only freefall drop on a lift hill Europe's second tallest coaster after Shambhala  
Queue
 
You walk past the massive tower, around a castle-turret themed queue and down a set of stairs entering into the building.  On the stairs you wait to be batched into a room, and whilst waiting there are televisions playing a documentary-style TV show which explains that the King who built the Kärnan fortress may have used a spell in order to keep the fortress impenetrable (nonsense says the archeologist being questioned!).  16 people (one train) are then batched into an incredibly well-themed room where another video plays.  This video speaks of the unearthing of the inner workings of the castle and discovery of rooms etc which may lead us to believe the spell is real!  We are told it is too dangerous to bring belongings with us and a bookcase shelf opens for us to deposit items.  Following the depositing of items you are led through a tight winding corridor past some cogs into a room with 12 doors in a circle which meet in a spire above, and 4 rows of 4 crowns on the floor.  When everyone has stood on a crown, the lights get low and above the doors there are crests which illuminate one by one, first slowly, then quickly, and the music climaxes before ending when one row of crowns on the floor lights up.  The floor lights then correspond to a door crest and the door opens for your group of 4 to board the train.  The process repeats until every group of 4 is assigned a row on the train.  This process is completely random; even after 9 rides we could not spot a pattern to the choice at all.  We rode twice in the front, once at the back, and the rest row 2/3.
 
The whole pre-ride experience is just fab.  Having a story behind not being able to take bags on is so unneccesary it's brilliant, and the idea of the spell choosing your rows stops the squabbling/extra queue for the front and creates an extra bit of excitement/tension before the ride.
 
Ride experience - SPOILERS
 
You turn left and pass under a barrel roll before a gentle hill down in pitch black and back up, before a very sharp (why no banking?!) left onto the lift hill. 
 
The lift hill gets off to a slow start much like other vertical lift hills on Gerstlauer coasters, but makes it way up the lift very quickly to about 3/4 of the way up.  There is nothing to see except lights of sensors on the track, which may make the lift suspenseful for some but just boring for me personally.  There are sounds which get increasingly louder and louder until... You freefall drop 100ft down the tower.  In reality you freefall for a short time before brakes gradually slow you to a halt at 1/4 of the lift hill.  The drop is isn't forceful, and whilst it would shock a first time rider I think it's dull and not worth the engineering effort it probably took to make it.  Despite this, it isn't a bad thing and certainly adds to the theme of the spell but perhaps not adding a great deal to the ride experience overall.  If there was more going on in the lift than just darkness and noise then it may have been better, but in its current state is just misplaced somehow.  After the drop there is another long wait before you start moving to the top of the hill.  The whole lift from start to finish takes 2 minutes, meaning a maximum throughput of 480pph (?!); the ride was running two trains when we were there, and whilst could definitely run more, throughput is incredibly hindered by the lift sequence.
 
The train slows at the top of the 200+ft lift hill and down you go.  Down down down.  The layout is a bit of a blur but essentially you go incredibly quickly through very tight turns and elements; the train really flings you out at times during the non-inverting loop at the beginning, there are some tight turns and good airtime hills.  If the ride had OTSRs it doesn't bear thinking about how rough it may have been, so the clam-shell lap bars were welcome although incredibly tight by the end of the outside ride.  The ride does seem to lose a little momentum but the final few turns despite the 80mph start at the bottom of the first drop, however an airtime hill before a sharp brake run shows the train is still travelling at quite a speed.  Past the brakes, a door opens and you enter an un-themed black room with an unexpected, slow, and slightly painful due to the tightness of restraints at this point, barrel roll.  Sharp right into a brake run where your ORP is taken, then a right onto the offload past a lit up shield (lol theming again).  You step off the train on the left and collect your bags from the other side of the bookcase before walking out through a gift shop.
 
Put simply the actual coaster experience is crazy, travelling as fast as stealth through elements designed to fling you out of the train, tight turns, and airtime hills.  Impressive pre-show and batching procedure, and despite poor-pacing inside (potentially due to not being finished) the experience is on the whole incredible in all the right ways.
 
Fluch von Novgorod
 
A Gerstlauer Eurofighter opened in 2009 like our Saw - The Ride
 
The queue was very well themed, you snake through corridors before choosing row 1 or 2 closer to the station.  Boarding the train from the left, after a quick check and you're off.  Using a pepper's ghost illusion a figure appears to the right and has a little sing, the train progresses and on the left a hooded figure with projected-face speaks more german goodness before the train moves forwards once more.
 
A sharp drop into an unexpected forceful launch, sharp right outside into an airtime hill which I would build in NoLimits and say 'no that's unrealistic'.  Twists and turns before a barrel roll and brake run into a building.  In the building is the classic Eurofighter lift hill with the hooded figure from before speaking to you from the left, crows seemingly attacking you (air cannons), and  lights etc in the ceiling above.  You plummet into a 97° drop, through an over banked turn, and into a set of trims before a sharp hill into the main brakes. A scarecrow then flys from the ceiling towards the train, which is particularly scary as it is unexpected due to being on the final brake run; also most effective if you're on the front row.
 
Whilst there was a fair amount of movement/rattle on the cars, the ride was not rough and incomparable to Saw's roughness despite similar speeds and tight elements (Why Saw, why...)
 
The theming and story was brilliant, and the only negative would have to be how short the layout was after the inside drop, there is just so much momentum that it seems wasted to end the ride after one hill.  But it was really fun, the launch was surprising, and the ride was forceful too.
 
Other rides and attractions
 
The other inverting coaster was a Schwarzkopf coaster called 'Nessie - Superrollercoaster'.  I have ridden looping Schwarzkopf coasters before but from memory only ever shuttle-loops, so I wasn't sure what to expecting in terms of roughness, and was pleasantly surprised that it was incredibly smooth.  The ride was fun with a loop through a mine train ride, a helix, and a few airtime moments (best in the back).  The ride finale is a drop into the mouth of the happy Loch Ness Monster into a tunnel of flashing lights (also the train storage area).  In the station there was a speed counter which showed how quick the previous train had traveller through the loop (Highest spotted that day was just over 86kmph, lowest around 80kmph which shows the difference between a full and almost-empty train).  All in all it was an enjoyable coaster!
 
The aformentioned mine train which passed through the Nessie loop was a very tired-looking Vekoma junior coaster.  Fairly forceful and long considering it was a junior coaster with penty of interaction with Nessie and its own track
 
Die Schlange von Midgard (The Snake of Midgard) was another Gerstlauer, this time family coaster.  The ride enters into a well themed preshow area before acceding the lift hill and completing the ride's short but thrilling curcuit twice.  As has been mentioned before on the forums, it is truly ridiculous the level of theming and detail put into this small attraction which rivals that of Disney and certainly puts Legoland's Dragon Coaster to shame to be honest, despite the difference in length of pre-show section
 
Spinning boat ride that was incomparable to Storm Surge - There was no water in the boats, the boats spun very forcefully despite several changes in direction of the flume, the circuit was a lot longer and more interesting, and it had a great deal of theming in the station and lower half of the ride.  It was really good fun and you can see why Storm Surge might have been a good ride for Thorpe, but unfortunately it is just run terribly somehow.
 
Die Glöcke (The Bell) - So much wtf, it was fun but I'll keep a KMG afterburner or similar over it anyday.
 
Plenty of fun playgrounds and a free high ropes course which had the biggest queue of the day.  A train which made its way around the park, Depth Charge clone, inverted pirate ship, Rattlesnake clone, indoor space-themed bumper cars, Calgary Stampede clone, and much more!
 
In the Kärnan pre-show there is a plan on a wall for a Gerstlauer sky-fly, so this may be installed on the patch of land behind Kärnan between Schlange and Die Glocke where there is currently empty plot.
 
Overall veiw of Hansa was that it was a fairly well themed, well cared-for park.  You can see that the theme and implementation of newer rides is really important to the park and well thought out, not dis-similar to the shift of Paulton's from rides like the Edge to the current Lost Kingdom.

Germany trip - Part 2/3
From 19th May to 25th May 2016
With Loose Steele Bluth
Parks visited: Hansa Park, Heide Park, Phantasialand
**Photos to be added at a later date**
 
Day 1 - Hansa Park is in the previous blog post
 
Day 2 - Heide Park
 
 
General points
⁃              Park open 10-6
⁃              It was a Saturday so the park was very busy (See queue-times to see the difference between Saturday and Sunday particularly!)
⁃              Difficult to access before 10 on a Saturday due to train timetabling
⁃              Fairly large park, especially compared to Hansa
⁃              Weekend following the opening of the 'How to Train Your Dragon' land
⁃              Good ride reliability!  A few times rides appeared as temporarily closed on queue time boards, but we were unaffected by/didn't see a break down all day (except Flug in the morning which I will talk about)
 
Public transport made it difficult to get to the park before opening - There is a bus from Hamburg to the park that arrives at 10:10am, but leaves to go back at 5 so we did not opt for this option and instead got trains.  Despite Heide offering a shuttle bus from Soltau station, the bus times did not coincide with our options for trains so we instead alighted at Wolterdingen at 10:17 (Train before arrived at 8:05 and we would have needed to be up at 6 or something ridiculous).  The park is then a 20-minute walk from the station on a road surrounded by trees.
 
On arrival it was obvious the park was going to be incredibly busy despite its size.  At 10:45 queue time boards showed Desert Race had an hour queue and Krake was on 45 minutes so we headed to Flug der Daemonen which was sporting a 10-minute queue.  We considered the Express Butler (Q-bot essentially) as it only costed €20 and you could use it similar to reserve and ride where you wait in a virtual queue for the wait time of the ride you wished to ride.  There were other pricing options such as €30 to wait half the queue time, and €70 for unlimited use on all rides all day too.  We however had faith in our ability to plan the day effectively and get on everything necessary without giving an extra €20 to Merlin for no reason.
 
Flug der Daemonen
 
Walking into the queue, I was pleasantly surprised at the theming,  The portion of the queue in the old log flume building was really atmospheric and also a good use of the historical existing structure, despite some unthemed cattle pens following that (and nets everywhere of course) the queue was very dealable, having views of the ride above and a noise when the train passed by an area of the queue similar to the Swarm.  Batching into the station was good as it kept everything organised (Germany ❤), however meant you could not opt for front row if someone else got their first!  So we got the back on the left hand side and admired the station and bag-drop turntable (No bag rooms made life so much better for all ❤) before setting off.
 
Halfway up the lift we came to a stop and after 5 minutes a member of staff came out to talk to someone two rows ahead of us (we presumed about camera usage on the ride?!) - Another 5 minutes and the ride started again.  At the end of the ride the person was spoken to by security and a park manager and trains were being sent empty, potentially indicating that he was tampering with the ride in some way?!   Unknown to us but we had lost a crucial 10 minutes early on in the day and went off to our next ride.
 
The experience itself was good!  I personally preferred that the transition from the lift to half loop was quicker than The Swarm, the airtime hill was good, the twists and turns were tight which led to a little bouncing of the trains but it didn't make the ride uncomfortable.  Sounds are played during times the train enters tunnels which was very effective and one of those small things which makes a big impact on the ride experience.  On the whole the length of the ride was welcome in comparison to The Swarm, but the Swarm is definitely more thrilling.  Flug may suffer potentially as every inversion feels the same, just another roll rather than a loop; even an inline would be a nice change.  All in all it was a fun ride with an interesting layout, theme, and effects.  The queue-line shop was hellish though...
 
We couldn't make sense of why Flug der Daemonen was shoehorned into the area its in as there is space elsewhere in the park, plus it makes the left corner of the park just a mash of coasters with Krake, Bobbhan, Flug, Big Loop, and Limit all there.  But it was impressively shoe-horned at least, leading to some tight elements and interaction with pathways, the queue, and itself.
 
Scream
 
An Intamin Gyrodrop tower.  This was fairly well themed as a pair of giant cogs moves as the ride is raised.  The queue moved quickly due to the high capacity, and it was nice to hear a very similar version of the detonator music!  Because it's a gyrodrop, it offered some good views of the resort from above as well as the local area (forestland).  A familiar top-spin gondola was spotted in the maintenance area, but more on that later!  The drop itself was more forceful than expected and caught us off guard - Really enjoyable ride.
 
Limit
 
An SLC which is the same as the rest... Awful.  I would love to see more parks invest in new trains for these like those on the SLC in WB Movie World, Gold Coast, Australia.  However I was a fan of the fact that the transfer track went over the queue line hilariously.
 
Land of the Huss flats
 
There is a Mayan-themed area with 7 flat rides all next to each other, all manufactured by Huss (The company is based in Bremen not too far from the park) The topspin and Rotor ride were closed, and we ignored the enterprise.  The topspin was closed for essentially maintenance, so the Ripsaw gondola may have been sent to Heide to have its parts cannibalised in order to get this one up and running again!
 
We enjoyed the breakdance although it was tamer than a recently enjoyed one in Tivoli Park.  A chair swing sits on a raised platform central in the land with the other flats surrounding it.  There was a moon dance which was surprisingly forceful, and a twister-type ride which was good fun too.
 
Desert Race
 
A quick look at queue times showed Desert Race at 20-30mins, so we headed there after all it had been 60 earlier on.  Walked past these wonderfully themed toilets on our way. **Photo to come soon**
 
Another rotating bag drop was used here ❤  The ride seemed very out of place and just plonked down, but the experience itself was pretty fun.  The layout is the same as rita with some more ground-hugging moments and a faster turn after the trims before the main brake run.  Better than Rita?  Yes, but potentially only due to the first turn not being the jolt we've grown to know and love of course.
 
The park's rapids were really good.  Long with two waterfall sections and loads of actual rapid sections.
 
The Mack Powered Mine Train has a similar (if not identical) layout to the one at Europa Park, and was therefore deemed a failure as the theming was lacking in comparison, especially when entering the big shed.
 
How to Train your Dragon Land
 
Land had opened two weeks prior and took advantage of the prevoius nordic-ish themed land
 
Had a boat ride like Charlie and the Chocolate factory which entered a cave and has screen-based Dragon entertainment.  There was a spinner ride with water similar to Solugden at Djurs Sommerland, Denmark.  There was a smaller spinner and finally a Zamperla Kite Flyer ride where you lie down and are spun like a chairswing.  It was painful on the neck if you didn't push upwards, but much fun was had.
 
The land was well themed and the IP is popular, so good news for Merlin, Dreamworks, and guests alike!
 
Lunch
 
We ate at the Dämonen Grill which was located next to Flug.  The ordering system was similar to Nando's athough there is a ordering form with both german and english to make it easier for everyone!
 
Restaurant was really well themed, with some nice cosy seating areas too!  Food was nice and like all the german food was in massive portions... 5? from me.
 
Krake
 
The queue reached 90+ minutes at a point so when it was down to 45-60 minutes we thought this would be the ideal time to ride.  The queue itself just had Dragon's Fury written all over it as you queue by the brake run with little view of anything.  After a bag drop (whyyyy) you enter the station where you have the choice of choosing front row or rows 2/3.  We opted for the front having waited a good 50 minutes outside already, an extra 10 minutes really wasn't an issue, however most other people felt the same and the other rows were not being filled.  People queuing assumed that row 3 wasn't a row and staff made no effort to correct this, even allowing people on the 3rd row to re-ride despite 15 + people waiting for row 2?!  This may have been due to staff shortage as they were running 2 trains (Not sure how many trains the ride can run, but there was a lot of stacking on 2...).  Two staff members checking bars and two in the bag room is just annoying to see when they run good bag shelves etc on their other rides.
 
The ride itself was really good; loved being eaten by the Octopus and coming out of a ship, nice floaty immelman and airtime hill too.  The ride is short but the main attraction of a dive machine is the drop which is delivered well here.
 
Big Loop
 
The park's oldest coaster with a train donation from Corkscrew at Alton Towers.  As rough as you expect a 1989 Arrow Sit-down to be, but it was still fun.
 
Bobbhan
 
Having ridden the Bobsled at Europa Park we didn't have high expectations, but felt like we should ride as we had the time towards the end of the day.
 
Surprise hit of the day!  It is long with loads of tight turns, and general hilarity which was so so much better than Europa's bobsled.
 
Colossos
 
The queue was listed at 90+ minutes all day so we decided to do this towards the end of the day.  Queue was incredibly unimaginative switchbacks despite plenty of room amongst this monster of a ride.  Managed two rides as we entered the queue a second time just before ride close at 6.
 
Both times we rode at the back as our experience with Intamin pre-fab wooden coasters (Balder at Leisberg) led us to believe this would give the best chance of airtime and fun.  The ride is just huge and incredible, debatably still the signature attraction of the park despite the much newer Krake and Flug pulling big queues and dominating the skyline on the left side of the park.  I don't have much to say except that it was as good as expected if not better, so much airtime and immense speed.  Whilst I would prefer the smooth-yet-exciting transitions of a GCI such as Wodan, it really was the most enjoyable ride in the park for me and I can see why it was so popular.
 
Overall it was an enjoyable day despite not having time for some of the smaller rides like the monorail, and whilst the coasters were good they lack a certain charm that Kärnan and Fluch had the day before, and none are stand-out rides except maybe Colossos!  Heide exuded the charm of a lot of European Parks which had their own mascots, and paid a lot of attention to detail etc with a quirkiness.  At present it does scream 'Merlin' quite a bit, but probably not noticeable unless you've been to a UK Merlin park.
 
Day 3 - Travelling
 
Train from Hamburg to Brühl before getting a taxi to Phantasialand (Were too late for the shuttle bus the park provides as our train was delayed).  I wrote days 1 and 2 on my phone during this time which may explain the difference in writing style or detail compared to Phantasialand days (part 3).

Germany trip - Part 3/3
From 19th May to 25th May 2016
With Loose Steele Bluth
Parks visited: Hansa Park, Heide Park, Phantasialand
**Photos to be added at a later date**
 
See parts 1 and 2 for Hansa Park and Heide Park

Days 4, 5, and beginning of 6 were spent at Phantasialand

 
General points

⁃              Park open 9-6 (Rides open either 9:30 or 10, and queues close at 17:45)

⁃              All rides were walk-on during the visit, so I won’t review rides in any particular order

⁃              Stayed in Hotel Ling Bao which was beautiful, although because it was quiet there was little dining choice (unless you love expensive buffets!) in either hotel after park close

⁃              The park was smaller than I expected, and incredibly themed to Disney standards (Better than DLRP probably ha!)

⁃              Good ride reliability!  Saw Chiapas down once and the Mine Train was closed in the afternoon due to wet weather on the first day, but otherwise I don't think I saw a ride down

 
Kulgheim

 
As I’ve stated in the Phantasialand topic, this area is beautiful and looks so incredibly ready to open, but there are many buildings hidden away that are in the process of being built.  The fact is the area is incomplete and having built two attractions which interplay with theming and landscaping so much, Phantasialand have been extremely clever to test that the actual rides work before completely closing up the area with restaurants etc.  Nothing worse than building an entire land and a rollercoaster needing to be ripped out of it to be repaired before opening.


 
Didn't take pictures of the area as a load of higher quality ones have been posted on the forums before.
 
Anyway onto the other rides - I will do a short review of rides as it seems to be a well-visited park
 
Black Mamba
 
It's like Phantasialand saw Nemesis and were like 'we want a terrain-y inverted B&M too'.  First ride on it, I was incredibly impressed by the theming and winding queue line through Africa, with plenty of views of the coaster itself.  The ride itself underwhelmed me a little, I think I expected something more from it, as I had heard such good things before riding.  A second ride later in the day on the back row showed that it maybe just needed some warm up time; being dragged round the first drop/turn and into the loop was incredible.  Whilst the helixes towards the end of the ride bored me on my first run, I was disorientated and felt a lot of force on them the second time.
 
Overall incredibly well themed, and a lovely B&M invert!
 
Wing's Fear and Force
 
So even after RCDBing these maurer spinning coasters a long time ago, I had luckily forgotten any of their surprises before riding them. First ride was on fear facing backwards
 
SPOILERS
 
Fear - Facing backwards was just incredible; the surprise of the elevator lift hill tilting before being released straight into an airtime hill just had me laughing from the get-go.  The visually stunning aspect of the ride is an interacting segment of wild-mouse sharp turns and circles around a ride in the middle of a central hall; this leaves you disorientated (spinning coaster eyyyyy) and too distracted to think what's coming next.  Brake-run into immelman and then onto a trick-track section.  Even when you think the ride is over there is a hinge-drop track.  It is just a ride that is full of elements which make it a truly interesting and disorientating experience without being overly gimmicky (because these are all hidden).  I am a massive fan of spinning coasters, so that probably makes me rate them a lot.
 
Force - Disappointing compared to its sister coaster, force does not seem as forceful or long, although I preferred the trick-track element on this side.  Once again it's a ride full of surprises during the first ride, and 
 
Not ashamed to say these were the most re-rided of any ride on our visit, I just fell in love
 
Temple of the Nighthawk
 
Having read about the past of this ride, it's just so difficult to see why it was ever turned into a jungle-themed ride which just meant the stripping of theming throughout.  The ride is just dull and long, but I'm sure for the younger among us is pretty terrifying flying through the dark.
 
Hollywood Boat Ride
 
Guilty pleasure of the trip - The first drop and Frankenstein scenes were particular highlights
 
Maus Au Chocolate
 
Having been on Toy Story Mania, I was interested to see how this would compare.  One thing which is welcome change was the amount of physical sets in between the 3D shooting show scenes, as TSM is mostly black space, although I understand they are stylised differently, it was nice that the ride had a backstory as to the need to shoot the mice who have run amuck in a bakery!  The guns were a little temperamental at times, but I did really enjoy this ride, and the chocolate smell which is pumped into it.
 
River Quest
 
Oh my god what is this ride, you literally get so wet and almost fall out of the boat.  I understand the need for the 1.4m height restriction...
 
Mystery Castle
 
Even though the park was dead, there were 2 actors roaming the queue line at most times and scared me always.  First time I thought they were animatronics as they repeated a small sequence of movements, then they would lunge at the un-expecting!
 
The ride was just hilarious, I was shocked at the sheer force of the ascent to the top, and the two cycles which were used almost at random were just as confusing.  It's kind of easy to see why there aren't any more Intamin Bungee drops in the world, but I did really enjoy it, and the first bounce is always quite forceful.
 
Talocan
 
Prime example of what theming a ride can accomplish.  Talocan is a top-spin, and yet the most incredible ride in the park.  Fire, water, music, and timing creates a visually stunning but also intense ride experience.  Loading soundtrack also got stuck in my head, another IMAScore success.
 
Chiapas!
 
Phantasialand was first on my radar since the construction of this beast of a log flume.  Intamin has basically redesigned the classic log flume with faster lift hills, quick forwards-backwards transitions, and steep coaster-like drops.  Not much I want to say except that the music was catchy and got stuck in my head as early as the second ride.  It is well-paced flume ride with good theming, music, drops, and a disco room.  Only negative would have to be the boats, as I managed to get some incredible leg cramp which made the ride hard to enjoy.  I also suffer problems getting in and out of the boats on Dudley-Do-Right's RipSaw Falls, so this may be a personal problem rather than anything else.
 
It was all the hype.
 
More
 
Went to the Ice Show, but as with Europa Park's entertainment I don't really 'get it'.  It wasn't even in german, but the whole story was about a girl who was hated in high school until she got a make-over from the popular kids - Are we not past this kind of awful storyline by now?
 
Mine train was great, Feng Ju Palace (Vekoma Madhouse) was terrible, The chinese-themed ghost train was hilarious, and I'm sure there's more to talk about...
 
The park was just incredibly well themed, the attractions were very re-ridable, and I hope Taron and Raik follow on from the park's other attractions.
 
 
 
 

Thought I'd start my blog with something light and jolly.
There is something so amazing about theme parks, the thrills and the adrenaline when your on the towering wonders of engineering. However there are only a few Theme parks where you can have fun without riding a single ride or visiting a single attraction.
Alton Towers breaks the mold. It is extremely calming and relaxing to take half of the day walking around the gardens or climbing the Towers rather than rushing from ride to ride.
Sure I understand that for those who travel long and far to get to the sleepy village of Alton just want to ride the rides but for those that have "been there" and "done that" it's really something that needs to be squeezed into your day.
The Towers are great to walk around and if you come on a day that they are actually open, they are worth a look.

For those photographers out there we have some fantastic photo opportunities, from the ground floor,

To the roof, you get some amazing photos of the rides in action or the lovely surrounding area.

Not to mention getting a look at future additions to the Towers

There really is a lot to see! It gives you a perfect vantage point of the surroundings (including a few behind the scenes car parks and the realisation that the cloud cuckoo land chimneys are fake!!)
Once your back on the ground you can also go and visit the majestic gardens!

From the initial view, this is where the magic of Towers still remains. There is no place like it!


From stepping stones to waterfalls, to greenhouses and statues the Gardens have it all and although it looks a little overgrown in areas the overall view is magical.

Been a long time! But a busy few months lie ahead for me and theme parks so time to revive this blog! 
Europa Park is one me and Jack had talked about for a few years, the place of dreams almost. Finally, it happened! This is one of those trips worthy of a realistic report, not some sarcastic attack at the park like I usually do.

We arrived in Basel to get a 100+mph train into Freiburg, followed by a double decker train to Ringsheim and a short "bus" (was a coach) ride to the park.

What a lovely sight to walk in on!

Just looming in the distance

Ed and Jack were ready!

Water fountains were ready!

Let's go!

First up Silver Star. I like the Mercedes F1 tie in, it's intimidating, trims aren't as bad as I was expecting but the airtime just got repetitive, twists were great though!

This twist though 



Meanwhile over at Epcot, I mean the silver ball at EuropaPark... Eurosat sits around. This thing is bonkers, so glad it's hidden inside. Caught me by surprise each time we rode! Totally get why people wish X was like it.

It's also huge!

Cheeky bit of lunch in Greece. Food on park is great, so much choice and it's not hugely expensive for a theme park!

I don't know why, but this is now such a guilty pleasure ride of mine

Looks great!


Theming!!!!

Really nice station too!

Meanwhile, in Portugal there is this. A ride that is newer than Poseidon, yet does less and does nothing for me. 

It photos well

But that's about it
Annoyingly I didn't take any photos of Spain, other than the jousting show with added drama

Bad guy drama


It's okay, it had a happy ending!
Whilst we're talking about shows. They have so many! Lots of 30-40 minute shows, this in itself takes over a day to complete. Plus, on the larger shows they have mimes entertaining the audience as you enter! 

You had Bombay Nights in Holland with the Pirate's of Batavia ride going around the stage!

A live action Italian film set stunt magic show thing

An electronic bird show

In the same room as a bubble magician guy who smokes as part of the show.

A musical show in the Globe Theatre, because Shakespeare was known for his musicals.

A dome screen show where you lie in sleeping bags! Plus, an ice show, flamenco, open and closing show, 2 4D films, a little French dance/magic show and a parade



Ed being boss.

Just this. Quality.

What's this?

A mine train that even with VR has a higher throughput than any Mack mine train over here!

Bears for bare banter.

Okay, I'll move on from that one.

Anyone still needing a lift to any meets this year, there are two options. This. 

Or Jack in his purple sportscar! Can seat another 2 people, it's speedy and laps Silverstone regularly so must be good! Feel free to get in touch with Jack for more details

Then there was this thing. Odd is one word I suppose. 

Next please.

Yup, this guy looks like a trusty op. We'll do this then.

I want them everywhere. This is ideal for family parks!

Great coaster section! Fab dark ride.

And great visual in the plaza of the kingdom. Lots of these please thanks.

So many photos it's hard to fit them all in. So let's look at the hotels.

Bell Rock is gorgeous.

Colosseo really cool!

The other 3 really cool!

And not bad views from the bars

Back on park this guy thought he'd set fire to his house. As you do, red fire and that.
So that's it! Europa Park! Stunning park with great rides, operations, atmosphere, just everything! I have loads of photos so if you do want anymore just request in the comments and I'll post more  
 
Oh, guess you want to see something else first though.

Me and Jack with ED  that's why you're all here.

Or maybe for what this is...


Lots of artsy fartsy photos thanks to a back path that I think used to be an extension but is now open to public for photos, round the back of Wodan village.





This inline is crazy. The little pops of airtime, fast changes of direction, it's all just great. LOTS more of these in the world please, I bow to our new Mack overlords.

Wodan for me though was the best ride on the trip. The indoor queue has some great effects, and is just a really nice place to queue.

It just looks intimidating.

Has a spectacular entrance


Just loved it!
Bye bye Europa, it was fab. Should be back for Horror Nights!

 
 

Stuttgart Sojourn
 
Welcome to Part 2 of the Stuttgart Sojourn; an April weekend exploring the regional Parks of south Germany (if you haven't read it, Part 1 is here). Following an overcast, but very enjoyable, day at Tripsdrill, a good night's sleep in one of their cosy Schäferwagen, and a hearty continental breakfast in a log cabin in the middle of the WildParadies (a second gate Wildlife Park next to the Theme Park), it was time to make the hour-long drive north to Haßloch's Holiday Park!
 
And what a difference a day made to the weather; out was the blanket grey cloud, and in were bright blue skies with warm sunshine. Theme Parks generally look great in any weather, but they look especially great when the sun has his hat on .
 

 
Holiday Park
 

 
Holiday Park is based 12 miles out of Neustadt in Haßloch, and much like Tripsdrill before it, is set in the middle of vast areas of German countryside. Rather more "corporate" and polished than Tripsdrill, the Park was owned and run by the Schneider family from its opening in 1971, and was sold on to Studio 100 (who own the Plopsa brand) in November 2010.
 
Since then, Studio 100 have made significant efforts to "Plopsa-ify" the Park, importing into Germany the characters so prominent in their other Parks (and if you haven't heard of Plop the Gnome, Wickie the Viking, and Maya the Bee... well, you're not missing much). And there are now lofty ambitions for Holiday Park, which had suffered in the years prior to the Studio 100 takeover, with the stated aim to drive gate figures up to 1.2m through a phased €25m investment (to match visitor numbers at the flagship Park, Plopsaland De Panne).
 
It's easy to spot the new owner's influence from the moment you enter the car park - Holiday Park now sports a jazzy new themed archway at the entrance, much like the one at its sister Park.
 

 
The eagle eyed amongst you will have already spotted the Park's signature attraction in the above photo, and it was indeed the first ride we made a Maya-the-Beeline for as we entered the Park.
 
Expedition Ge Force's reputation precedes it; winner of the (revered?) Mitch Hawker Best Steel Coaster Poll 5 times in the last 10 surveys, and never dropping below third place over that time. With three of my personal favourite coasters coming in at 8th (Shambhala), 9th (Nemesis), and 11th (Katun) respectively, it would be fair to say that I was hyped to get to ride the so-called "King" of the leaderboard.
 
The ride is loosely themed around an expedition, with jeeps / backpacking gear / kettle drums scattered around the queueline, but the station is essentially an unglamorous tin shack, and the unthemed trains are of the standard Intamin lap-bar variety, commonly seen on their megalite rides (although these had tedious seat belts around the waist as well as the lap bar).
 

 
So far, so average. Also average were the operations - one train op, with the 2 ride attendants checking and re-checking both bar and seat belt twice each before the train was dispatched. We were lucky that despite the glorious weather, the Park wasn't overly busy - but had these ops been on a busier day, the resulting queues would have been pretty intolerable.
 
What isn't in any way average though, is this ride's scale. In a small-ish Park, it looks absolutely huge (at 171ft tall), with a monstrous sweeping layout that takes up a pretty large amount of Holiday Park's available space.
 
The cable lift hill is speedy, and affords some magnificent views of the surrounding countryside, along with the large twisty mess of track that riders are about to navigate. And as with Shambhala, the anticipation (and feeling of vulnerability) on the ascent is tangible.
 

 
There are many standout moments on this ride.
 
The 75mph first drop is an absolute winner; steep and sharply twisted down to the ground - in the back row particularly it's a killer. The numerous airtime hills, like the one below, deliver a sustained shot of ejector airtime. And the head choppers towards the end of the ride, where the track doubles back on itself underneath the supports of the first airtime hill, are some of the best I've experienced for maintaining the illusion of collision.
 
CoasterForce have a video of the ride that's well worth a look. GeForce is really, really good fun.
 

 
And yet, despite all this, it is hard to recommend it as the best coaster in the world.
 
The ride was built in 2001, around the same sort of time as Thorpe's Colossus. Aside from the lack of OTSRs, the train and track construction is pretty similar. The trains sound the same as Colossus as they roar around the track. And the comparisons with Colossus unfortunately extend to comfort: Expedition GeForce has exactly the same level of constant vibration / roughness that Colossus has.
 
For some people, this may add to the ride - no-one can claim that GeForce isn't exhilarating, or that it doesn't "give you a good ride". It's quite the thrill. But it does, especially in the back rows, mean that rides can come off GeForce feeling a bit beaten up.
 
And alas our old friends - the Intamin lap bars of doom - also don't help this feeling. Granted, they're far preferable to Colossus' restrictive OTSRs, but they do crush your thighs, especially over those ejector airtime hills, making re-riding more of a difficult choice than it should be. How Richard Rodriguez spent 104 days on the thing I've no idea.
 
So, Expedition GeForce: brilliant in many ways, but not, in my opinion, the best coaster in the world.
 

 
The Park's other big attraction is 2014's Sky Scream, a Premier LSM launched coaster with a small footprint; identical to Superman Ultimate Flight (the 2012 original) at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. Part of Studio 100's €25m investment plan, the ride replaced the ageing Vekoma Corkscrew Super Wirbel, and a la Towers' entrance, corkscrew track from retired ride has been installed over the pathway towards Sky Scream as a nostalgic decoration.
 
And as you can see, the old overgrown Wirbel area has been completely transformed by the new ride. Anyone for a quick trip in the Sky Scream Limo of Horror?
 

 
I was not expecting to come away with a hugely positive review of the ride, thinking that the experience would be similar to Parque de Atracciones' Abismo, Linnanmäki's Ukko and the like (in short: fun Maurer rides, but too short, and with stomach-hugging, oppressive restraints).
 
I was surprised.
 
Sky Scream is smooth, intense, and well engineered. The train shuttles out of the blocks into a half-powered set of LSMs, pushing it halfway up the incline. Then it shuttles (backwards) into the station, where the LSMs (now with reversed magnetism) push it nearly all the way up the incline on the opposite side. Gravity does its bit to take the train back down (forwards) into the station, where the LSMs (at 100%) boost the train right up the incline and over the top of the 150ft structure.
 
A slow inline twist follows at the top (as with the Maurer SkyLoops), and then a short holding brake (seen below) creates suspense, before the train bombs down again at a very steep angle into the non-inverting loop, and then down again back into the station. The train overshoots the station once, before being comfortably braked coming backwards in to stop.
 
Sky Scream is a lot of fun, with decent Gs felt across all of the elements, and the (comfortable) lap bar restraints meaning the rider can properly enjoy being thrown around the circuit. It's worth saying that the trains come complete with a leg bar as well as a lap bar - which could be an irritation for taller people - but (at 6'1'') this didn't materially affect my enjoyment of the ride.
 

 
Holiday Park chose to open the ride without any of the associated themeing in place (see an early photo here), but a mention must be given to the final product, which is now of a very high quality. The queueline acts as a walk-through Haunted House, with jumpy TV-screen effects, detailed set scenes, and loud noises (chains, dogs barking) startling prospective riders throughout. The Park actually has banners outside the entrance advising under 14s to stay away! I particularly enjoyed the lenticular portraits that changed from "normal" to "spooky" as you walked on past; done before, but nonetheless effective.
 
Overall, Sky Scream gets a thumbs up. Yes, it's short, but for the size of its footprint I think Premier are on to a winner, besting Maurer's ride by having intense launches, and being less clunky and more comfortable. And with two of these rides having opened last year, and two more opening this year, I'm clearly not the only person to think so.
 
Given its limitations, Sky Scream clearly can't compete with the very best coasters out there, but I'd ride again without hesitation. Couple that with an impressive themeing package, and Studio 100 have done a great job here - no bad thing if this is indicative of future quality from Holiday Park.
 

 
The Park's final coaster comes in the form of Holly's Wilde Autofahrt ("Holly's Crazy Car Journey"), a brightly-themed 2010 Maurer Wild Mouse from the now defunct Loudoun Castle, not dissimilar to Rattlesnake at Chessington. There's not a lot to be said about these rides, other than this one was running well, with barely a brake in sight... other than at the very end! The cars screech around the corners with gusto, throwing all riders uncontrollably into the side of the vehicles.
 
Brutal, but fun!
 

 
It's easy as a coaster geek to undervalue common ride types, such as the wild mouse, the boomerang, even the wacky worm... but for 99% of a Park's guests, particularly the younger ones, these rides are as fresh and exciting as anything else out there.
 
I was reminded of this when watching riders on Holly's Wild Fart (yes, a fart gag) - almost every car was filled with guests screaming their heads off and having a thoroughly good time. These ride types are successful for a reason, and although we goons might have ridden many identikit versions of a type ourselves, this doesn't make their existence any less worthwhile.
 

 
Onto the Park's supporting attractions, and first up was Sky Fly, a new-for-2015 Gerstlauer, um, Sky Fly. Whilst not winning any awards for naming innovation, the Park have presented the ride well in a colourful new area surrounded by stalls, cafes and a toilet block. I am a huge fan of this ride type, which involves riders tilting the wings on their individual aircraft left and right in order to induce rotation, all whilst being whirled around a central support via a giant arm (much like a Mondial Top Scan).
 
Holding the left wing down / right wing up will rock you in one direction, holding left wing up / right wing down will rock you in the other. Get enough momentum up and you can make it over the top and complete a 360. Keep your wings "fixed" in the wing position (up / down) that pushes you over the top, and you'll continue to rotate in that direction like a madman. Of the 12 guests per ride, usually 2-3 will grasp the concept and make it over the top.
 
What is brilliant is that the rider can set the intensity of their ride by how much they want to rotate their aircraft. What is also brilliant is that if you get the rotation momentum right, the resulting spinning is downright insane - and easily one of the most intense flat ride experiences out there. If you have read my mini Trip Report from Nigloland in 2014, you'll know that their Air Meeting gave me a subconjunctival haemorrhage, as well as an uncontrollable fit of the giggles. Whilst the eye problems were thankfully not repeated in Holiday Park, the giggles certainly were, and I came away with a big grin on my face, along with lots of strange looks from the waiting crowd.
 

 
The Park also has a Star Flyer, the 260ft Lighthouse Tower, from Funtime. I like these rides mainly for the fab views (yes, more German countryside), but with only a few chains holding your chair onto the central spinning structure, I can see why some otherwise-confident guests chicken out of riding...!
 

 
Burg Falkenstein ("Falkenstein Castle") is a German hill castle in the Harz mountain range, located between Aschersleben and Harzgerode, dating back to the High Middle Ages. It's also the name of Holiday Park's only dark ride!
 
Built in 1987, the ride certainly looks the part from the outside, complete with wooden stocks and well-established plants growing up around the aging brickwork...
 

 
...and long-time visitors to Thorpe will recognise the inside - it's Phantom Fantasia!
 
Sort of. Mack provided Holiday Park with this version of the omnimover-style ride 4 years after they furnished Thorpe with theirs, and 5 years after they gave Europa Geisterschloss.
 
Alas time has not been kind to the Burg on the inside. Burg Falkenstein has to be one of the most badly-aged dark rides in Europe, with only a tedious journey around supposed "animatronics" that are either falling apart, squeaky, or stationery, to offer. The attraction is very dark, and there is the impression that scenes have been removed over the years; there are some entirely blank spots during the ride. Altogether very dull.
 
It's a well above average dark ride building, and a well below average dark ride. A shame.
 

 
Much more impressive is Donnerfluss ("Thunder River"), an Intamin rapids ride that also happens to be Holiday Park's oldest ride; built in 1983, Donnerfluss was also Germany's first ever rapids.
 
Sporting the same boats as Thorpe's Thunder River (also an Intamin creation), this rapids has all the components of a great water ride: good rockwork, thunderous waterfalls, surprise geyser bombs, and most importantly, some pretty hairy rapids sections! 3 out of 4 of our boat got very wet; only one of us came off unscathed, and thankfully that was me .
 

 
And on the subject of good water rides, Wickie Splash is another solid addition to the Park's lineup. The Mack flume was opened as Teufelsfässer in 1992 ("Barrels of Hell"; darkly-themed with the devil, skeletons, and fire effects), but received a family-friendly Plopsa re-brand in 2014.
 
The re-theme is fantastic, brightening up the whole area with shiny, colourful buildings and characters from the Wickie the Viking series (if you still aren't familiar, you can enjoy / waste 3 minutes introducing yourself here). And the log flume itself is excellent; 3 fun drops including one backwards, with the inside turntable sections allowing for some storytelling with Wickie and friends. The final drop is an airtime-filled double-down, much like Logger's Leap's (now sadly missed), but a smidgen higher at 65ft.
 
Good length, multiple drops, a backwards section, well themed, wet but not too wet. You can't ask for much more from a Park flume!
 

 
The final ride of note in the Park is Anubis Free Fall Tower; the first free fall drop in Europe, standing tall at 230ft. I love Intamin drops, common though they are, and this delivered as consistently as any other. That said, having opened in 1997, its age does show - the fall itself was pretty unrefined and clunky, and there was definitely a greater than average amount of shaking on the way down!
 
It's also worth saying that the link to Anubis, Studio 100's successful kids drama, was tenuous at best - there were a few posters of the show displayed in the queueing area... and that was it.
 
Previously the ride was simply called Free Fall Tower. Nothing like shoehorning in an IP when it's not required...!
 

 
And last, but by no means least, we come to the Park's all-season Wasserski Stunt Show, staged at least once a day in the Park's 1,300 capacity Aquastadion.
 
Replacing the incumbent show of the last 2 years, "Hollywood's Talking Dead" (um, OK ), for their 45th birthday Holiday Park debuted a brand new spectacle: "Die Jubilaumsshow Holiday Park - 45 Jahre" ("The Anniversary Show of Holiday Park - 45 Years"). There was even a giant celebratory cake floating in the middle of show lake.
 

 
The Holiday Park waterski show remains Europe's first and only waterski stunt show in Europe, and against any metric, it's an absolute winner. A team of c.10 stunt performers showed off some serious skills on the water, involving waterskis, waterboards, high speed boats, jetskis, and jetpacks. There was also some abseiling and high-wire work across the audience.
 
And the whole show was set to a pumping up-tempo soundtrack, with gunfire, cannon-fire, pyrotechnics and party streamers thrown into the mix!
 

 
Perhaps the best thing about the show though was its bonkers storyline. My German's not exactly great, but from what I could gather...
 
Holly (the Park's original mascot; not a Plopsa character) wants to throw a party to celebrate Holiday Park's 45th birthday Holly has made a giant birthday cake, and needs help lighting the candles Comedy French bad guy (in a comedy cape, sporting comedy mustache) turns up with his comedy French henchman, having arrived all the way from Disneyland Paris (in a Mickey-Mouse themed old banger) Disneyland Paris bad guy claims that Disneyland is the best Park in Europe, and therefore must ruin Holiday Park's 45th birthday celebrations Holly attempts to eliminate the Disneyland bad guy, via many high-speed chases and stunts on the water Having had no success, Holly rings up good friend Roland Mack (!), who provides Holly with a Europa Park stunt boat (!!) Holly saves the day by arriving in the nick of time on the Europa Park stunt boat Both comedy French bad guy and henchman are blown up in a big fireball via a cannon The cannon is then filled with fireworks and directed towards the cake The cake explodes with colourful fireworks, streamers erupt into the audience, Holly does a dance, much jubilation, etc...  
Utterly hilarious, and great to see such tongue-in-cheek rivalry between Parks on the continent...!
 
Holiday Park flatters itself by making the comparison to Disneyland and Europa, but still... top stuff .
 

 
So if it wasn't clear already, I had a great day at Holiday Park, with GeForce, Sky Scream, and the Wasserski Stunt Show being reason alone to make the journey over to Haßloch. It's in a period of transition, with the new owners investing in both new areas (Sky Scream) and redevelopment of old areas (Entrance Plaza, Wickie Splash) - and long may this investment continue.
 
There is certainly more to do; the Park's layout is strange, and the quality is inconsistent; generally, things that have been Plopsa-ified are of a far higher standard than the legacy areas from the old ownership (I'm looking at you, Burg Falkenstein...). So there's a way to go before the whole thing feels coherent. But I am confident - seeing the improvements to date, and having the backing of the chain behind it - that this upward trajectory will continue.
 
And any Park that invests heavily in entertainment gets my vote. In addition to the Wasserski Stunt Show, Holiday Park puts on an energetic daily parade involving all the Plopsa characters, as well as regular shows for little ones in the main plaza area.
 
Thanks for all the smiles, Maya the Bee!
 

 
And thanks to you for reading; comments welcome as always.

Stuttgart Sojourn
 
The 2016 Theme Park season is upon us, and what better way to kick off than a weekend hop over to visit our deutsche Freunde in Baden Württemberg. The reason for the trip was to explore two of the more regional, and less-well-travelled parks, in Germany: Tripsdrill and Holiday Park.
 
Planning was a cinch, involving a Eurowings flight out to Stuttgart (£50) and overnight stay at the Wyndham hotel on airport (£30) on the Friday evening, 2-day car hire from Avis (£30) picked up on the Saturday morning, entry to Tripsdrill on the Saturday (£17), overnight stay in the Tripsdrill Schäferwagen on the Saturday evening (£40), entry to Holiday Park on the Sunday (£24), petrol for the weekend (£8.50), and BA flights home on Avios (£17.50); all prices per person, based on 2 travelling. At £217 each, it's great value - and I'd encourage anyone thinking about planning a similar European trip to jump straight in - there's a huge variety of Theme Parks on the continent, not all that far from us, at relatively accessible prices.
 

 
As you can see, both Tripsdrill and Holiday Park are easily driven to from Stuttgart airport, although flying into Frankfurt could also work. And for a three day trip, Europa Park is also just under 100 miles away...
 
First up, on the Saturday, was Tripsdrill; a Park marketed as "featuring over 100 original attractions depicting Swabian life in the late 1800s... remarkable attention to detail, dedication to authenticity and respect for nature truly set Tripsdrill apart". And I'm happy to report that there's no marketing hooey here: the above sums up Tripsdrill really rather well.
 
Tripsdrill
 

 
This here is a Swabian man - let's call him Günther - from the late 1800s. Goodness knows what he is doing, or what he has on his back, but Tripsdrill is stuffed full of animatronics such as Günther - the Park really is a mecca for rural German history, if that's the sort of thing you're into. There are whole areas of the Park filled with both static tableaux and moving scenes, and you can easily spend an hour wandering around the place exploring all the exhibits.
 
This, along with its gorgeous rural location (in a valley, surrounded by vast rolling fields), gives Tripsdrill a very "homely" feel: it would come as no surprise to anybody that it remains family owned (the Fischers have run Tripsdrill since 1929; it's easily Germany's oldest Theme Park). It's clearly important to the owners that the Park integrates as much with nature as possible; wood is used for most buildings, and there are trees and flowers everywhere. And being family owned, there is a more "relaxed" approach to H&S (although I never once felt unsafe), operations were excellent, and there wasn't a queue-jumping scheme to be seen.
 

 
First up for us was the 2013 Gerstlauer Infinity Coaster, Karacho (no literal translation, other than "a lot of power"). The Park's newest and most intense ride, Karacho still manages to nestle in very comfortably with its countryside surroundings. The ride features Infinity trains with similar assemblies to Alton's The Smiler, but with only 2 rows rather than 4, and lap bars instead of OTSRs.
 
Themeing on the ride, as with all of Tripsdrill, is excellent, with scenes around the queueline telling a story about a madcap inventor designing his perfect roller coaster, surrounded by plans, prototypes and the like. Karacho is the result of his work, but as riders disembark, they are treated to one final animatronic of the inventor throwing up (water) into an oil drum. Not so perfect for him, then.
 
The ride itself involves a 180 degree turn out of the station into darkness, a "surprise" indoors heartline roll in the same vein as The Smiler, a peppy 55mph LSM launch out into the light, and an outside layout that involves a 98ft top hat, 2 dive loops and a corkscrew.
Operations were excellent, with fast, regular dispatching of trains - the operator would give each lap bar one push down and one pull up, and that was it; away we went. Top marks.
 

 
I was expecting Karacho to be a solid Gerstlauer installation, in the same vein as Lynet at Fårup, or Anubis at Plopsa. Solid launch, decent layout, OK trains. So I was really surprised to find that Karacho was actually bloody fantastic.
 
The trains are a large reason as to why - the Gerstlauer clamshell lap bar is a triumph; allowing maximum freedom whilst not exerting too much pressure on any one part of your thighs (I'm looking at you, solid Intamin bar of doom; see my Italy TR for more musings on this). For me, Karacho's are the closest coaster seats in terms of comfort to those found on Mack's megacoaster product - high praise indeed.
 
This elevates an enjoyable experience to a brilliant one, as the rider has complete freedom to be thrown about the remarkably well-tracked layout - which, in contrast to certain other rides, features absolutely no jolting or shuddering whatsoever. It's super smooth, and super fun.
 

 
By far the highlight of the ride is the 2nd dive loop, shown below. Not only does the ride tunnel underground, but the transition from the banked curve (seen at the back) and the dive loop (at the front) is very tight, meaning that riders get sharply "pulled around" into the dive (in a similar way to blue fire's final inline twist). It's an example of where OTSRs would have caused all sorts of painful head bashing, but with clamshell restraints, the ride remains intense but comfortable.
 

 
A final nod to the ride's lighting package. The well-themed trains look even better when they connect to the power supply in the station, as the two rear "engines" start to glow a vibrant red. It's a simple LED effect but really showcases Tripsdrill's attention to detail, fostering a nice anticipatory atmosphere in the dimly-lit station.
 
Overall, Karacho came very close for me to being the perfect mid-sized coaster. Although it probably wouldn't trouble my top 10, it would get fairly close - and it's by far the best Gerstlauer I've ever ridden. It actually prompted me to consider a trip to Finland to ride its brightly-coloured brother at PowerLand, and seems to me to be the perfect investment for parks with mid-sized budgets; I can imagine Blackpool and Drayton would be good candidates in the UK for this sort of ride.
 
And finally - why, oh why, could Merlin not have opted for lap bars on Smiler's Infinity trains...?!
 

 
Next up was 2008's Mammut ("Mammoth"), a pre-fab wooden coaster from Holzbau Cordes (similar to Intamin's pre-fab efforts with Balder and Colossos), themed around German saw mills. Cue more tableaux in the queue line of workers, saws, wood, etc... you get the idea. Strangely, no mammoths to be seen. And again, Gerstlauer were involved - this time producing the trains.
 
It's an imposing ride for a smaller park like Tripsdrill (98-foot tall, 2,822ft long), and I had to set my camera to "panorama mode" to fit it all in...
 

 
We were lucky enough to get 4 back-to-back rides in the morning (it turns out the Park doesn't get so busy during dreary Saturdays in April...!), and I'm happy to report Mammut is a good 'un.
 
An entertaining pre-show before the lift hill (with a "saw mill goes wrong" theme), a killer first drop (especially in the back row), and a varied layout including a tunnel, all add up to a solid ride. Operations were good, albeit one train only.
 
It isn't hugely intense - although I suspect that's not the market Tripsdrill's after - and there is a little bit of roughness during some parts of the ride - although there's a good argument that this is part and parcel of a wooden coaster - but these are minor quibbles of an otherwise decent coaster.
 

 
You also get the advantage of some superb views of the rolling green countryside as you ascend the lift hill.
 
It's no Wodan or Troy, but just look at the curve on that drop. Phwoar.
 

 
Moving on, and this is G'sengte Sau - the Park's first "big" coaster, from - you guessed it - Gerstlauer. Indeed, Tripsdrill's involvement with Gerstlauer goes back a long way, as G'sengte Sau was Gerst's first ever coaster, back in 1998. And what is remarkable is how smooth and accomplished the ride is, given that it was Gerstlauer's very first effort.
 
The ride is built around a schwäbisch castle, featuring the wild-mouse bends and tight helices typical of these bobsled coasters, with some good near misses around the building structure. More than most rides at Tripsdrill, this one felt truly integrated with its environment; the bunny hops towards the end of the layout felt more like they were following the terrain than having been artificially created.
 

 
It most reminded me of Thor's Hammer at Djurs, which was no bad thing - and no surprise either given that Thor was Gerst's 2nd ever bobsled ride in 2002. A little rough in places, but capable of pulling some great forces around its tight layout.
 
Note how close the ride track is to the public pathway; no netting obscuring the view, no fencing or bars erected in the name of H&S. It makes a big difference to the organic feel to the ride, and was great to see - the Germans are clearly more trusted than we are to not do anything stupid...
 

 
The other side to the castle hosts the wonderful Badewannen-Fahrt zum Jungbrunnen (translation: "Bathtub Journey to the Fountain of Youth"). This is an above-average Mack flume ride, where riders sit in comedy bathtubs meandering around various animatronic bath time scenes - some featuring a fair bit more nudity than you'd see in other countries! I have photos, but we must remember that TPM is a family website...
 
There were three drops, including a backwards one, and some nice interaction with the aforementioned G'sengte Sau. The drop was visually impressive, but didn't get you all that wet - which is the perfect combination for a cloudy April afternoon in my eyes.
 

 
By far the best bit of Badewannen-Fahrt zum Jungbrunnen however is the figure - let's call her Maike - that greets you when you disembark your bathtub.
 
She surely has to be one of the most gross characters to be found at a Theme Park, ever.
 
Some things cannot be unseen...
 

 
Onto some of the Park's supporting attractions, and we come first to Doppelter Donnerbalken (literally, "Double Thunder Beam"). This is a quirky set of two 50ft drop towers from Premier, facing each other, both themed to large trees. "Forest Brother" Huzelin lives in these trees, apparently, and the only way to visit him is to ride the tower. You know it makes sense.
 
What was quirky about the ride, apart from the fab Tripsdrill themeing, was what happened for the finale. For most of the ride the towers acted like oversized frog-hoppers, bouncing around whilst catching the expressions of those on the tower opposite (made all the more thrilling by only having a small lap bar to hold you in). The finale though involved both towers being raised to the highest point, and then a pretty fast, aggressive lurch forwards towards the riders on the opposite side.
 
This maneuver was genuinely surprising, and only a touch away from being "too rough" - with only a thin lap bar to hold you in, the experience could be compared to having a minor car crash.
 
A nice idea, but I have no doubt that the same effect could be achieved in a more refined way. It's telling that I didn't rush around to ride it again, and I'm a big fan of drop towers (for the record, Thorpe's Detonator still stands as #1 drop tower for me, even up against other towers three times its height...).
 

 
The Park also has a decent kiddie coaster in Rasender Tausendfüßler (translation: "Raging Centipede" ), a Zierer Tivoli with a high-capacity train that snakes around a lake with a fountain.
 
Some decent landscaping - and two laps around the track rather than one - elevate this coaster above the majority of similar kiddie rides.
 

 
Tripsdrill also has an excellent rapids ride in Waschzuber-Rafting ("Washtub Rafting"), a Hafema installation themed around an old washhouse from 1808. The queueline was, as ever, excellently themed, although old mangles and first-gen Miele washing machines aren't the most exciting of things to view whilst queueing...
 
I've always been a fan of Hafema rapids (their best creation surely being Phantasialand's River Quest) due to their innovative 3-piece boats that allow water to slosh around everywhere. This rapids was great fun as expected, with some seriously choppy bits, a thundering waterfall section, and a mock whirlpool, seemingly a Hafema hallmark.
 
Note again how close the Park's public areas are to the trough of the rapids. There's only a small wire fence between the pathway and the ride, meaning that an idiotic guest could easily jump right on in...
 

 
...and the same applies for Mühlbach-Fahrt ("Mill Stream Ride"), the Park's kiddie flume with a teensy 11ft drop - the cobbled area shown on the bottom right of this photo is a public area, but with absolutely nothing to stop a guest falling / jumping in to the water. I wonder how many kids in the summer have attempted to jump in!
 
In today's age of hyper-sensitivity to H&S and litigation, Tripsdrill's approach is unusual, but refreshing - let's just hope their more trusting attitude doesn't spell trouble for the Park down the line.
 

 
And finally a quick look at some oddities that make Tripsdrill, well, Tripsdrill. This ride, Weinkübelfahrt ("Wine Barrel Ride"), looks like your typical cars-on-a-track affair (R.I.P. Miss Hippo), but when various sensors are tripped around the course, the barrels spin like a lively teacup. Fun!
 

 
Fittingly, just behind the Weinkübelfahrt is the Vinarium, a free museum dedicated to German viticulture that offers all those who enter a free Tripsdrill glass ( ) and a walk around (yet more) exhibits of Swabian culture.
 
More of note was the cellar of this Vinarium, which turned out to be a fully operational bar. Manned by a local guy with absolutely no understanding of English whatsoever (A Level German suddenly became very useful to me), locally-produced wines from the region were the order of the day. I went for a glass of red (€1.50), which proved very palatable.
 
Tripsdrill are onto a winner here: if only more Theme Parks would give out free merch and sell cheap local wine in pleasant surroundings....
 

 
Laughs were had on the Park's Wackelräder ("Shaky Wheels") bikes, which had asymmetrical spokes on the front wheels, making them pretty hard to cycle around. I crashed into a wall once, and very nearly crashed into another guest barely a minute later. Good fun, with up-charging conspicuous by its absence.
 

 
In all, Tripsdrill is a really lovely place, filled with good quality, well themed mid-sized attractions.
 
Karacho is a stand-out ride. The fact the Park is family owned and run is evident throughout, and although it was pretty when I went, it must look really gorgeous in the summer. The flowerbed : guest ratio, even in peak season, must be approaching something like 3 : 1 .
 
It's also a place filled with German heritage oddness, which can range from educational and interesting to just plain strange.
 
To finish, I'll leave you with the latter; yet another Tripsdrill character - let's call this one Stefanie - who was found towards the end of the Tripsdriller Eheinstitut (translation: "Tripsdrill Institution of Marriage"; itself an odd attraction).
 
You saucepot, Stefanie.
 

 
N.B. We stayed overnight in one of Tripsdrill's Schäferwagen ("Shepherd's Carts"); essentially a classier, all wooden Thorpe Shark Hotel, set in gorgeous woodland surroundings. Theoretically you can fit 5 in these 13 sq.m.carts, although it would be a squeeze even with 4: two bunk beds hang over a central double bed, with a couch doubling up as a potential fifth bed. Toilets and showers are situated in a (well maintained) central block, but for those with a bit more cash to spare, full blown 6-person 35 sq.m. treehouses (with integrated bathrooms) are also up for grabs.
 
It was more than comfortable, and didn't just provide €7 pizzas delivered to our door and a great night's sleep, but a hearty free breakfast the next morning. At €100 (£80) a night all-in, including free entry to the Tripsdrill Wildparadies Nature Park next door and discounted Tripsdrill Theme Park entry, it comes recommended to those looking for an overnight option.
 

 
Thanks for reading; comments welcome as always.
 
Next up: Holiday Park!

So was in the park from around mid day. The event started at half 7, and the park closed for normal quests at 6. People for Howl O scream were aloud in at 5 and were given wristbands, so from 6 only people with wristbands were given access to all the rides. This was nice as it meant we didn't have to sit doing nothing for an hour like we did at Universal.
Was really looking forward to this event, open until 1am with 7 houses with all the main rides open. There was a also a show, live music and nightclubs for those interested.
There were no specific scare zones listed on the map like universal but there quite a few around the park, and groups of actors walking round the park similar to Fright Nights. There were people dressed up in ghille suits hiding in bush's and trees all around the park who just randomly just out at people or make a loud bang every so often. I found out the hard way when at 6 (still daylight) I shat my pants when one jumped out a bush and made a loud bang. Didn't expect any actors to be out at all, especially at 6. The event hadn't even started and I had already had a much bigger scare than I got the whole time I was at Universal. Such a great idea, and scared so many people. No one expected it.
There was a group of clowns roaming the park as well, and one of them made me jump again as well. At a corner there was a clown just standing there making strange noises distracting me, then another clown jumps out from behind a bin with a horn and scares you. Very well done.
Anyway onto the houses...
The Basement
So first up was the Basement. Turned up here about 15 minutes before it opened not knowing how busy/quiet it was going to be, but thought it was strange there being like 5 people in front of me when there was only 15 minutes until it opened.

As soon it was time, we were led down into the main queue and we were straight in. No talks like all the events in the UK, just signs at the entrance.

So at Busch gardens all the mazes were free flow meaning you didn't have to hold on the person in front of you, and they put you in the maze in around groups of 20, not as small as what they do in the UK but not as big as Universal (which is just a 1 massive conga line.)
Themed around mamas kitchen and how she is gonna cook you up and eat you. A brilliant house, better than all of the ones I did at Universal! Theming was excellent, water sprayed at you (as vomit) for example. All actors were great and stayed in roll the whole time, chainsaw ending on this one as well. 9/10
So next up located in Gwazi park (now closed during the day)...
Circus of superstition 3D

So being a 3D maze, you wear 3D glasses and everything in the maze is painted really bright UV colours, and all the glasses do is make the colours strike out a lot more.
After doing a dreadful 3D maze at Universal Halloween horror night I really wan't expecting much from this one. I walked up to the maze to see a completely empty queue, and got asked if I wanted to wait for a group or just go in alone (Didn't meet my family until after this house). So for the whole first half of the maze I was completely alone until I caught up with another group. It was one of the most intense experiences of my life. Full of scares, including actors on swings/bungees who come out of no where and swing of the wall right up to you (you can't see them on a wall before they swing at you, they just come at you out of nowherere and swing back again. ) Clown costumes were excellent, music was excellent, acting quality again was amazing and overall just an amazing house. Defiantly one of the best I've ever done. 9/10
Facade looked amazing.

And there was a giant clown running around outside as well.

Next up was the new house for this year, Unearthed scarlets revenge.

Waited around 15 minutes for this one, was a bit stupid of us going in the house at the entrance of the park just as the event started as it had no queue later on Gwazis queue was used as the queue for this house, and even went right up to the station...



So annoying having a beautiful woodie lit up next to us SBNO which closed months before we went All the trains are still there sitting in the maintenance sheds.
Anyway back to the house, it was alright. Theming was good once again and was creepy, but lacked scares, which wasn't helped by the fact too many people were let in meaning it was very slow moving inside there. The main character in there Scarlett was just weird, a sexy girl with horns? Don't know how she was meant to be scary, or how she linked in with the rest of the monsters in there and rest of the house. Was just all a bit weird. Was a good house but just no where near as strong as the first 2 I did. 7/10
Death Water Bayou
Didn't really know what to expect for this one. Walked up a long path to find a nice facade, looked like an abounded house. This house was seriously amazing. Probably the best house/maze I've ever done. Seemed to have so many parts of the houses all combined into one, for example the swings/bungees from the clown maze were in here. A ridiculous amount of scares, a spinning tunnel, actors were amazing, theming was amazing, was just a really strong house throughout, loved every second. Very intense, most amount of scares in a maze. 10/10!!
Zombie Mortuary
Wasn't expecting to be scared a lot from this one, had never been through a zombie maze but once again a very good house. Soundtrack was great with a strong organ sound playing throughout, made a creepy atmosphere. Zombie costumes were really good, theming was good surprisingly a lot of scares. Another really strong house. 8/10
Deadfull
Again a pretty strong house, not a lot to say about this one. Theming was great, remember seeing a Merry go round, a playground, a graveyard. Was more creepy than scary. 8/10
Zombie Containment unit 15
Unfortunately I didn't get to experience this one. It had over a 45 minute queue the whole night when everything else was pretty much walk on, so we really couldn't be bothered. Guessing the reason for this is low throughput, all I know is that you have a gun and have to shoot the zombies. My advice to anyone that goes would be to do this first before it builds up a queue, the queue did not go down the whole time we were there.
Rides open at night were:
Cheetah Hunt in the dark was very good with a lot of it being dark.

Dodgems were great with smoke, lazers and loud music.

Kumba :wub: :wub: :wub:

Sheikra

Falcons Fury, which the Americans seemed to love.

and Montu.
Overall this was by far the best Halloween event I've ever done. The park atmosphere was fantastic, actors all round the park were fantastic and obviously all the main rides are open for night rides. There was really good music throughout the park, lighting and smoke machines everywhere. It's crazy how much a huge place can all have such a good atmosphere.
All the houses were very good, all had excellent theming, nice facades, great soundtracks and full of actors. Obviously some were better than others, but all the houses were very strong and there was none that I thought were terrible.
Walking around the park in the day is completely different to walking around it at night, it just all comes out of no where. There are loads of really nice photo opportunities dotted around the park as well, with actors standing there and staff to take a photo for you. Have one of me and my Dad.

We left the park a few hours early, we got we wanted to do done multiple times as there was literally no queues. Busch are good with re-rides on the coasters as well which is nice.
Lots of actors at the exit when we left

Apologies all the photos are terrible but they were all taken on my phone and all turned out very bad at night.
Thanks for reading. Happy to do a trip report of Busch Gardens in the day, Universal halloween horror night, Islands of adventure, Studios, Sea World, Fun Spot if people are interested

As we know, following a poor response to marketing of Swarm last year, Thorpe decided to "revisit" Swarm's image and increase the "'thrill factor' for visitors". This was despite very positive reviews for Swarm as it stood last year. So, along with the new billboard theming elements, the back two rows have been turned backwards.
Now, in a way, it's very hard to do a comparison between the two. They are, essentially, the same ride - they follow the same layout, you more or less experience the same things, the off-ride experiences (queuing, ride interaction, etc.) are basically the same and so forth. More or less the only difference is the way you're facing. So, a comparison between the two is highly subjective - it boils down to what you're looking for when you ride Swarm.
So, the best way I can think to compare the two experiences is to focus on individual aspects of the ride's layout and how they ride when going forwards and backwards. Then, any other things can just be dealt with afterwards...
Inverted Drop
One of the defining features of Swarm is the 'head first inverted drop'. When going forwards, you are either in the front row, so are left looking at the track ahead of you, unaware of how much of a spectacle the 180 degree turn really is. In any other row, you see the train twist slowly upside, which is one amazing sight. It shocks you, makes you realise what you're about to experience, and before you know it - there you are, spinning around yourself. It is truly great. Going backwards has little difference to the front row in my opinion, except you just don't know exactly when it will happen. It's still a great feeling, but it neither adds nor takes away from the experience. So, basically, either way, it's great!
The Plane Wing
The first of the near misses really does little for me when going forwards. It's there, but it is a generic 'close, but not too close' near miss. It's certainly there more for the spectacle of it all as opposed to being something that's genuinely too close for comfort. That said, when on the left hand side of the train, it can catch first-timers off guard. When going backwards, it's as you would expect - you don't see it. I personally don't really even realise it's there when going backwards - may as well be a mist box there as the plane wing adds absolutely nothing. So the plane wing is nice and all going forwards, and superfluous when going backwards. So, forwards > backwards.
Zero-G Roll
Now, I absolutely LOVE this when going forwards. It's an inversion you really, really feel - something which I think is lost on more modern inverting coasters. When you are nearer the back of the train, it's great being able to see the train twist through the inversion as well. Going backwards is good as well; again, you really feel the inversion. But I'm not as big a fan of it going backwards; I still enjoy it, but just not as much as going forwards. A part of me thinks that, because when you were at the back of the train (I.e. row 7) and going forwards, it added to the idea of seeing the train twist through even more, I'm thinking that 'well, the backwards rows lose this effect'. Thus, as a straight out comparison between the forwards and backwards rows, I think the forwards rows JUST edge it out over the backwards rows, but comparing the Swarm we have now to the Swarm we had last year, the Swarm we had last year was better. So, forwards > backwards.
It is here I'd also compare the ways facing when the fire goes off from the fire engine, but as I've only been fortunate enough to experience it going forwards, it would be unfair of me to compare.
The Billboard
The all new near miss for 2013 is certainly a great addition. Many people's favourite near miss of the ride, it is certainly effective. Off ride, it is great to look at, and has a nice bit of quirkiness to it. On ride, when going forwards, just WOW. The way the train twists out of the zero-G roll means is it is genuinely an exciting feature and one where it seems like you may not 'twist enough in time'. The left hand side also provides a secondary near miss after the corkscrew, which is nice. Backwards though, you of course don't get the effect. You simply twist out of the zero-G roll and dive on through. Yeah sure, you see it afterwards (which is a nice advantage of the billboard compared to the other near misses, as it feels designed for backwards as well as forwards viewing, probably due to the fact it was built with the backwards rows in mind), but it's nothing special really. So, again, forwards > backwards.

The back of the billboard.
The inclined loop follows. It's nothing special either way - just a solid element that is paced well. Nothing more to say here other than forwards and backwards are equally solid.
Turnaround / The Helicopter
The turnaround is probably by favourite section of the ride when going forwards. It is surprisingly fast and forceful, and lasts a decent length of time. When on the right hand side of the train, it is just phenomenal, with the addition of the water spray and the subtle near miss of the spinning helicopter blades which can catch the unsuspecting off guard. One of the reasons why last season the back-right seat became my favourite was because of this part of the ride - you'd get a splash of water, force, speed and a near miss - what more could you want?! Backwards through this section is great as well; being able to see the water effect 'chase' you feels nice, and is something missed a bit when going forwards. But the subtle near miss from the helicopter is missed, which is a shame, as it is my favourite near miss of the ride.
When it boils down to it, riding forwards or backwards through this section of the ride is equally good. However, I did prefer back-right going forwards to going backwards there.
Corkscrew
The entrance into this element is great, continuing the forcefulness of the turnaround. Going forwards, the corkscrew is another solid element, and I think it has been designed with the visual spectacle in mind - going through the inclined loop looks great off ride. However, going backwards, it is a real highlight. I can't explain it really, but I just love it. Maybe it's the novelty of doing a common inversion on coasters backwards, but it's just a great feeling and the one thing I think 'WOW' about the most after riding backwards. So, backwards > forwards.

The corkscrew, beautifully cutting through the inclined loop!
The Tower, Church and Inline Twist
Near miss wise, I don't rate the tower or church highly. They're a very generic 'close, but not too close' near miss, and whilst nice, it doesn't impress me much. This doesn't mean they're bad in any way, and off ride it is simply stunning. The inline twist is, as with all the inversions, one you feel, and even if you don't get the near miss effect too much from the theming, it's still great being twisted upside down over it! Backwards you miss the near misses (same old story there then...), but the inline twist is fun, and as with going forwards, it's great seeing the station when you're hurled upside down. So, backwards and forwards are both equally good.

The tower, where the brilliant 'Swarm noise' plays.
And that basically ends the ride. The rest that follows is the worst part of the ride as it stands, going forwards or backwards.
Other Bits and Bobs
Just one final thing I want to say. I'm going to ignore the fact that I hate the way the queue system works and not use that in my judgement of which 'way' is better. However, the fact that the old Fastrack queue is now the backwards queue means there's less chance to see the ride in action, and it's harder to see the queue line TVs (and they are less frequent). I'm a big fan of having the experience of a ride start when you enter the queue, and finish when you're out of exit - a ride should never just be about the hardware. The backwards queue suffers from the fact that you can't get a decent 'feel' of the back story unless you've already seen it, which is a shame. It's only a little niggle, but it's a niggle nonetheless.
And so, there we have it. So, if you haven't been counting, here's how each of the individual on-ride elements 'score up', if you will:
Forwards 'wins' - 3
Backwards 'wins' - 1
Ties - 4
The fact that there are equally many ties and 'wins' should tell one thing - The Swarm is an amazing ride. Whether you have the seats facing forwards, backwards, inwards, whatever-way-wards, you won't take that away. However, facing forwards is the way forward (if you'll pardon the pun...); as, simply put, it allows you to experience the theming and the near misses that Swarm has been designed to take advantage of. If you take them out the equation, the experience is lacking something. Now, me knocking the backwards rows all sounds very negative, but honestly, it is my third favourite coaster experience - only beaten by Swarm going forwards and Nemesis at Alton Towers. So, time for the final verdict:
The Swarm (Forwards): 10/10 (In a way, I don't want to give it a perfect score, but I just can't justify not doing so).
The Swarm (Backwards): 8.5/10
(And comments and criticisms are welcome! )

Yeah, I'm doing this thing again. It's my 5th season doing a 'season review', and it's interesting seeing not only how the park has changed, but also how my general views of the park have changed, in that time. Here's some links to 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014's reviews if you're interested. This entry will be a lot less photo-heavy than the rest, mostly because I've taken less pictures this season, so I'll try and keep the writing to a minimum too. With the boring points out of the way, "prepare for Detonation"...
New for 2015 - I'm a Celebrity "Maze"
At this stage last year, it seemed likely that nothing new would be added. But in February, the announcement of the IAC maze came about, and well, when I first heard about it, I'll admit, I laughed. I thought it was a joke. And even after it set in that it was actually happening, I was a bit sceptical. But at the same time, I had a lot of hope - I could see the potential there, and that it could be something quite different and fun; features which were desperately lacking at Thorpe.
Throughout the season, IAC has been a mixed bag. Even though not all the effects were working (and some planned effects never came to fruition), it was good fun and had a smile on my face all the way through. One of the great things about it was how plenty of little tweaks could be done, keeping the attraction fresh for regulars, whilst still being fun for newcomers. However, towards the end of the season, it became a bit flat. Less effects, scenes skipped and less coherency. Maybe it's because of the numerous run-throughs that I feel like that, or maybe it really did go down in quality; it's hard for me to say.
All in all, IAC isn't a bad investment. It fills a gap that Thorpe were missing, and has some great quality theming. It has a bad throughput (though one that isn't far off the demand it will have in future seasons I expect), and won't last more than a few seasons, and the money invested in it could have been better spent elsewhere. But for the time being, it's a neat little side attraction.

Looks pretty at night.

Minimalist queue line theming.

A very unflattering photo of me as King of the Jungle.
New for 2015 - Other Stuff
In terms of general improvements, touch ups, etc., there isn't exactly much new to speak of. The refurb of Bar 360 to Fin's Bar and Grill was fantastic; with a nice general atmosphere and good food to go with it. It's nice to see things begin to link together, with the Shark Hotel, Fin's and the bits of island / shark theming in the Dome have created some consistency in the park's main hub - I'd just like to see more of it!
Other than that, there wasn't much of note. A few bits and bobs got a bit of cleaning up (Depth Charge submarine, Stealth signage, Swarm billboard, etc), which is nice to see. A name change to the BBQ to try and push IAC a bit more, and a couple of new game stalls moved about, showing that on the whole, this season really was low key.


What a difference a year makes (thanks Thorpe!).

New Swarm billboard, which should hopefully last a lot longer too!
Birthday Celebrations!
The S&S duo turned 10 this season, a birthday I'm sure many of us thought at one point or another Slammer wouldn't reach. In fairness, Slammer did have a good 4 and a bit months of pretty much continuous, day-to-day, operation this season, which hasn't always been the case in recent seasons. And it did manage to make it to the last day of the season, even if it did have its Fright Nights rest. But still, we're talking about a ride which opened over 2 months late, had to close every day for engineering checks, isn't exactly very popular and can't be trusted as far as you could proverbially throw it. Thorpe must be commended for keeping it for so long and such, but surely it's almost time to give up the ghost.
Rush, on the other hand, is still swinging all the time, but seems to still be troubled with out-of-time swings and short cycles. It feels like both of these things should be sorted, and shouldn't have been a trouble for so many seasons now. One can only hope that this is sorted...

Still Slammin'...just.
The Coasters
Not much to say here on the whole, since my opinions on the coasters haven't changed that much really. I guess the long-standing issue of reduced operations should be mentioned, with specific mention to Colossus and X starting the season off on reduced capacity for quite a while now. I always feel like Thorpe shoot themselves in the foot when they say 1 train op is down to 'lack of demand', as it feels like a kick in the teeth to anyone waiting in those queues which can be up to 45 minutes in my experience.
Saw's extended period of closure following the Smiler incident was also a big hit for the park too. From an operational standpoint, it didn't seem like queues were affected that much by it, but I guess the decrease in guest numbers would also explain that.

Random summer stuff happening by Stealth.

Colossus saw a lick of paint...in some places.
Other Rides
I'll keep this short and sweet, since there isn't really much to say. Samurai died again, but was resurrected (again). Rumba Rapids still needs a lot of TLC. Tidal Wave closed early, and whilst the ride itself isn't missed in the line up, the area feels distinctly lacking without the crashing of a wave every few minutes. Vortex also died for a what felt like a good couple of months.
This seems to be a problem Thorpe will face in the very near future. Some of the filler rides are becoming less reliable, even less popular and lack the general appeal in the modern theme park environment Thorpe are trying to create. One does have to wonder how long it will be before we see some of the bigger name rides removed...

Samurai just about existing.

This nice themed bench appeared by Teacups. It lasted a couple of days before being removed due to damage. But it did return, fully fixed!

Storm Surge makes a mess as usual.
February Half Term
For the first time since 2009, Thorpe opened its doors in February. With a very small ride line up, a large Brainiac show and some small Brainiac stalls set up around the park, it was an interesting idea, and perhaps a slightly risky one given how the previous events went down. I unfortunately didn't attend because of uni stuff, but on the whole, it sounded alright, but it was still a case of the park not being ready for such an event yet.
For something like this to be successful, you need a show or two, a couple of indoor attractions and a mixture of rides, from major to minor ones. The event just didn't have enough of this. Hopefully, in a couple more years, the park will be ready to have another, more successful, shot at this. I'm not surprised that it's not returning for 2016 in all honesty.
Easter?
No Easter event this season was a disappointment. They seemed to be onto a winner with last season's event, and it would make sense to push Angry Birds every Easter in my opinion. But yet, we had nothing. Lack of budget, maybe? Who knows. A shame really, but let's hope they can do something for 2016...
Island Beats / Summer Nights
8 weeks of live music acts, including some big-ish names, at a theme park with interspersed with late-closings. It sounds like something which could really work at Thorpe. And with over 70 acts performing, including some established names and some up-and-comers (including Louisa Johnson, this year's X Factor winner!) it feels like something which had to work.
However, it just didn't seem to do the trick. Maybe there wasn't enough marketing? Maybe there wasn't enough interest in visiting theme parks in general? Maybe it was just too confusing? Maybe the two just don't mix? I don't know. But Island Beats just didn't seem to work for the park, and it strikes me as a lot of time, money and effort for something which just ultimately wasn't worth it. It'll be very interesting to see what happens next summer.
On the other hand, Summer Nights had a successful third season - let's hope that it not only continues, but also grows.


Fright Nights
I sometimes think people forget just how huge Fright Nights is, and how, theoretically, it is brilliant value for money if scare attractions are something that interest you. You get 5 free attractions (some of which are quite different to your run-of-the-mill scare attractions), with the option of a 6th one to pay for, along with roaming actors and general change in atmosphere. There's few places which offer the quantity that Thorpe offer, especially when you consider how little they raise their prices compared to non-FN days.
This season saw a very clear shift away from the Lionsgate partnership, which is a shame. It could have been used so much more than it was. Instead, we had the clown-focus (which, in fairness, was good), along with Big Top, which was far too inconsistent. It was an ambitious maze for Thorpe, but ultimately they just couldn't find the sweet spot. Containment was also new, and was pretty good on the whole, but just marketed as way too scary for what it is.
For me, Blair Witch was the best attraction all in all, and I do hope that we see Thorpe continue to use that route in the future. I also loved Face it Alone once again, and it's great to see Thorpe pushing boundaries even further. I was disappointed at the lack of overnight experience this year though - was planning on trying it out this season!
It'll be interesting to see the direction taken next season, especially since the Lionsgate partnership is rumoured to be done. And with the overhaul Scarefest saw this season, Thorpe do need to consider upping their game once more.

My post Face it Alone face...
Reserve n Ride
RnR happened again this year, with some much-needed improvements to previous years. On a personal level, I thought the system worked great and still believe that if properly implemented, could be the way forward for Thorpe.
However, it might seem that Thorpe themselves disagree. Given that trials were planned to take place during the entirety of Fright Nights (and rumours of it even being trialled in September too), but didn't, would suggest some concerns internally. Whether they simply did not want to risk it after a bad season, wanted to change it, or had just lost faith in the system is anyone's guess. But after the plug being pulled, I am somewhat doubtful we will see the return of RnR next year..

RnR advertising was subtle, meaning no one knew about it...
(Please make sure the screen doesn't break again for so long Thorpe!)
Food and Merchandise
Not much to say on the food front, since essentially all my meals were eaten in the aforementioned Fin's Bar this season. Was nice to FINALLY see the Freestyle machines introduced on park, even if it is a shame that it is one unit, by the front of park, and only opened on peak days. Hopefully this can be the beginning of them being rolled out across park though..
Merchandise was once again good this season, as seems to be the case with all the Merlin parks. A nice variety of things, and it was good to see them trial limited edition stock in Fright Nights and WC16 merch. Given how quickly some of the FN stuff sold out, I expect we'll see an even bigger range next season too.


Fin's, as done by Scruffy Dog.

Freestyle pricing.
VIP Experiences
This season, I did coaster climbs on both Colossus and Inferno. These are truly great experiences and something I would roughly recommend people looking into! They are on the pricey side, yes, but as with all things Merlin, there's always going to be an offer on them at one point or another; so jump on them if you see them.
What I find a bit novel about my experiences were the different weather conditions - I did Colossus on a very cold, windy March day, and Inferno on a very wet August one (so both very different to be sunny Swarm experience in 2014). It made for all the experiences to be very different in more ways than one!


These experiences are JoshC. approved.
Loggers Leap - RIP?
After many rumours circulating, Thorpe confirmed via Twitter that Loggers Leap wouldn't open in the 2016 season. However, it isn't clear if this closure is permanent or not. It's hard to know what to believe at the moment, but in any case, the closure of Loggers seriously dents the 'fun for all' ride quota at Thorpe. Fingers crossed that, whatever is happening, we're not left without a log flume for too long...
A Look Ahead
WC16. Simply put, WC16 has to be a success. It has to draw in the crowds and it has to be a well received attraction. If it's not, then I am genuinely worried how badly Thorpe could be affected in the future. What would be the point in throwing large amounts money at Thorpe if it doesn't pay off, especially when Merlin are trying to minimise the aftermath of the Smiler incident?
Personally, I'm still not "excited" for the attraction, since I struggle to get excited over something I know nothing about. However, I'm intrigued by it all, and do really look forward to trying it out, whatever 'it' is.
As for everything else... Well, I have no doubt we'll see the odd touch ups around the park, nothing special, just the standard little bits they've done in recent closed seasons. I'd really like to hope that this is the season they bring back themed areas too. But I would like to see it done right, rather than the park just slapping names to sections of the park, so I wonder if it's a bit too much to ask?
A Personal Touch
As some on here will know, last year I had a brother join me in this funny old world. So, back in March, at a mere 5 months old, my baby brother went on his first trip to Thorpe. Not quite as soon as me (Thorping since I was 6 weeks old, oh yeah), but still a good start...

Just a shame the Carousel couldn't have stuck round a little while longer for his first Thorpe ride!
And that's about it. Unsurprisingly, I said I'd keep things short and I haven't; oh well. Thanks for reading!

If 2014 was a year with new rollercoasters left, right and centre, then 2015 was like returning to old friends and sharing a big hug. This was a first for me. Not a single new park in 2015 and only two rollercoasters to my name. Why was this? I wish I knew but my priorities seemed to be tried and tested parks rather then venturing out into the unknown in a quest too boost a coaster count.
To start the year, it took till May to visit my first theme park of the year; the amazing Europa Park. We all know the draw with this, the important thing is that this theme park blows my mind overtime and if you haven't been yet, go. The best collection of rides, shows, hotels, entertainment, bars, environments and theming in the world. We took a detour via Disneyland Paris which just seems to go from strength to strength.

A month later, came Florida for my birthday (Although my partner will always maintain it was just for Star Wars weekend). Despite all the criticism Florida gets, I always have a wonderful time at Disney World and always shed a tear when I leave. Was good to see Dan9 on his first trip there too.

October time and back to Disneyland Paris before the big refurbishment years hit which includes massive closures to Disneyland Parc. No Thunder Mountain, no Star Tours and other rides down for several months. We were there to take my partners mum on her first Disney trip. She had an amazing time is already pushing us to visit for Christmas in 2016.

The final foreign trip of the year was a free trip that I won to Europa Park. I could complain that we were only there for a day and a half and spent most of the time tired, but thats petty when everything about the trip was paid for buy the Stuttgart government. Every ride had some kind of Christmasy vibe such as the Spacemen on Euro-Sat dressed as Santa or entire rafts on the Indian river raft ride taken over by Snowmen. It was wonderful.

And now.. the depressing part of the trip report.
I've taken a massive break from Merlin, even before the Smiler incident. My trips to Alton, Thorpe and Chessington in 2014 had been pretty depressing. The parks were getting run down, lots of ride closures and things broken and a general feeling that the parks were not where they should be and with no hope in sight I'd just gone cold turkey and wouldn't be talked round to visiting. Once the Smiler crashed in June, I felt compelled, despite my feeling that Merlin don't deserve defending, to defend the park against the public and particularly the media calling our parks unsafe, deserving of closure and other negative comments that really put a shiver down my coaster enthusiast spine. Despite all the bad things that I know of the Merlin parks, safety has never been something I've questioned or even thought of when riding an attraction at their parks.
I even felt a need to visit and it wasn't until August that I stepped back into Thorpe Park. The same old issues arose. Loggers, Saw, Slammer, Colossus, Fish, Storm Surge and the Swarm all closed at the same time. The terrible Angry Birds Land and the not even worth looking at I'm a Celebrity Maze hardly inspire confidence that Merlin can get these parks back on track. There are some nice shiny parts of Thorpe but Nemesis Inferno, Stealth, The Swarm and Detonator cannot save Thorpe. A worthy, insightful, interesting, entertaining, fun attraction is needed desperately IMO.

October saw me visit Alton. Christ what a ghost town. The Smiler incident has truly ripped the heart out of Alton Towers. I've never seen Nemesis, Air and Rita running one train and struggling to fill all the rows and I've certainly never seen Oblivion on a two carriage operation. Whilst all the outrage at Alton about rumoured ride closures and massively cut hours is justified, theres only so much money that can be made from the few people that visit. It's very easy to sit in a room and declare Alton a disgrace for whats happening there. All we can say is that Alton is ever to get back to its feet, it needs to remember what its sole purpose is and hopefully in two/three years time, Alton would be the popular place it was ten years ago.

And with that, happy new year everybody!

Yeah, I'm doing this thing again. It's my 5th season doing a 'season review', and it's interesting seeing not only how the park has changed, but also how my general views of the park have changed, in that time. Here's some links to 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014's reviews if you're interested. This entry will be a lot less photo-heavy than the rest, mostly because I've taken less pictures this season, so I'll try and keep the writing to a minimum too. With the boring points out of the way, "prepare for Detonation"...
New for 2015 - I'm a Celebrity "Maze"
At this stage last year, it seemed likely that nothing new would be added. But in February, the announcement of the IAC maze came about, and well, when I first heard about it, I'll admit, I laughed. I thought it was a joke. And even after it set in that it was actually happening, I was a bit sceptical. But at the same time, I had a lot of hope - I could see the potential there, and that it could be something quite different and fun; features which were desperately lacking at Thorpe.
Throughout the season, IAC has been a mixed bag. Even though not all the effects were working (and some planned effects never came to fruition), it was good fun and had a smile on my face all the way through. One of the great things about it was how plenty of little tweaks could be done, keeping the attraction fresh for regulars, whilst still being fun for newcomers. However, towards the end of the season, it became a bit flat. Less effects, scenes skipped and less coherency. Maybe it's because of the numerous run-throughs that I feel like that, or maybe it really did go down in quality; it's hard for me to say.
All in all, IAC isn't a bad investment. It fills a gap that Thorpe were missing, and has some great quality theming. It has a bad throughput (though one that isn't far off the demand it will have in future seasons I expect), and won't last more than a few seasons, and the money invested in it could have been better spent elsewhere. But for the time being, it's a neat little side attraction.

Looks pretty at night.

Minimalist queue line theming.

A very unflattering photo of me as King of the Jungle.
New for 2015 - Other Stuff
In terms of general improvements, touch ups, etc., there isn't exactly much new to speak of. The refurb of Bar 360 to Fin's Bar and Grill was fantastic; with a nice general atmosphere and good food to go with it. It's nice to see things begin to link together, with the Shark Hotel, Fin's and the bits of island / shark theming in the Dome have created some consistency in the park's main hub - I'd just like to see more of it!
Other than that, there wasn't much of note. A few bits and bobs got a bit of cleaning up (Depth Charge submarine, Stealth signage, Swarm billboard, etc), which is nice to see. A name change to the BBQ to try and push IAC a bit more, and a couple of new game stalls moved about, showing that on the whole, this season really was low key.


What a difference a year makes (thanks Thorpe!).

New Swarm billboard, which should hopefully last a lot longer too!
Birthday Celebrations!
The S&S duo turned 10 this season, a birthday I'm sure many of us thought at one point or another Slammer wouldn't reach. In fairness, Slammer did have a good 4 and a bit months of pretty much continuous, day-to-day, operation this season, which hasn't always been the case in recent seasons. And it did manage to make it to the last day of the season, even if it did have its Fright Nights rest. But still, we're talking about a ride which opened over 2 months late, had to close every day for engineering checks, isn't exactly very popular and can't be trusted as far as you could proverbially throw it. Thorpe must be commended for keeping it for so long and such, but surely it's almost time to give up the ghost.
Rush, on the other hand, is still swinging all the time, but seems to still be troubled with out-of-time swings and short cycles. It feels like both of these things should be sorted, and shouldn't have been a trouble for so many seasons now. One can only hope that this is sorted...

Still Slammin'...just.
The Coasters
Not much to say here on the whole, since my opinions on the coasters haven't changed that much really. I guess the long-standing issue of reduced operations should be mentioned, with specific mention to Colossus and X starting the season off on reduced capacity for quite a while now. I always feel like Thorpe shoot themselves in the foot when they say 1 train op is down to 'lack of demand', as it feels like a kick in the teeth to anyone waiting in those queues which can be up to 45 minutes in my experience.
Saw's extended period of closure following the Smiler incident was also a big hit for the park too. From an operational standpoint, it didn't seem like queues were affected that much by it, but I guess the decrease in guest numbers would also explain that.

Random summer stuff happening by Stealth.

Colossus saw a lick of paint...in some places.
Other Rides
I'll keep this short and sweet, since there isn't really much to say. Samurai died again, but was resurrected (again). Rumba Rapids still needs a lot of TLC. Tidal Wave closed early, and whilst the ride itself isn't missed in the line up, the area feels distinctly lacking without the crashing of a wave every few minutes. Vortex also died for a what felt like a good couple of months.
This seems to be a problem Thorpe will face in the very near future. Some of the filler rides are becoming less reliable, even less popular and lack the general appeal in the modern theme park environment Thorpe are trying to create. One does have to wonder how long it will be before we see some of the bigger name rides removed...

Samurai just about existing.

This nice themed bench appeared by Teacups. It lasted a couple of days before being removed due to damage. But it did return, fully fixed!

Storm Surge makes a mess as usual.
February Half Term
For the first time since 2009, Thorpe opened its doors in February. With a very small ride line up, a large Brainiac show and some small Brainiac stalls set up around the park, it was an interesting idea, and perhaps a slightly risky one given how the previous events went down. I unfortunately didn't attend because of uni stuff, but on the whole, it sounded alright, but it was still a case of the park not being ready for such an event yet.
For something like this to be successful, you need a show or two, a couple of indoor attractions and a mixture of rides, from major to minor ones. The event just didn't have enough of this. Hopefully, in a couple more years, the park will be ready to have another, more successful, shot at this. I'm not surprised that it's not returning for 2016 in all honesty.
Easter?
No Easter event this season was a disappointment. They seemed to be onto a winner with last season's event, and it would make sense to push Angry Birds every Easter in my opinion. But yet, we had nothing. Lack of budget, maybe? Who knows. A shame really, but let's hope they can do something for 2016...
Island Beats / Summer Nights
8 weeks of live music acts, including some big-ish names, at a theme park with interspersed with late-closings. It sounds like something which could really work at Thorpe. And with over 70 acts performing, including some established names and some up-and-comers (including Louisa Johnson, this year's X Factor winner!) it feels like something which had to work.
However, it just didn't seem to do the trick. Maybe there wasn't enough marketing? Maybe there wasn't enough interest in visiting theme parks in general? Maybe it was just too confusing? Maybe the two just don't mix? I don't know. But Island Beats just didn't seem to work for the park, and it strikes me as a lot of time, money and effort for something which just ultimately wasn't worth it. It'll be very interesting to see what happens next summer.
On the other hand, Summer Nights had a successful third season - let's hope that it not only continues, but also grows.


Fright Nights
I sometimes think people forget just how huge Fright Nights is, and how, theoretically, it is brilliant value for money if scare attractions are something that interest you. You get 5 free attractions (some of which are quite different to your run-of-the-mill scare attractions), with the option of a 6th one to pay for, along with roaming actors and general change in atmosphere. There's few places which offer the quantity that Thorpe offer, especially when you consider how little they raise their prices compared to non-FN days.
This season saw a very clear shift away from the Lionsgate partnership, which is a shame. It could have been used so much more than it was. Instead, we had the clown-focus (which, in fairness, was good), along with Big Top, which was far too inconsistent. It was an ambitious maze for Thorpe, but ultimately they just couldn't find the sweet spot. Containment was also new, and was pretty good on the whole, but just marketed as way too scary for what it is.
For me, Blair Witch was the best attraction all in all, and I do hope that we see Thorpe continue to use that route in the future. I also loved Face it Alone once again, and it's great to see Thorpe pushing boundaries even further. I was disappointed at the lack of overnight experience this year though - was planning on trying it out this season!
It'll be interesting to see the direction taken next season, especially since the Lionsgate partnership is rumoured to be done. And with the overhaul Scarefest saw this season, Thorpe do need to consider upping their game once more.

My post Face it Alone face...
Reserve n Ride
RnR happened again this year, with some much-needed improvements to previous years. On a personal level, I thought the system worked great and still believe that if properly implemented, could be the way forward for Thorpe.
However, it might seem that Thorpe themselves disagree. Given that trials were planned to take place during the entirety of Fright Nights (and rumours of it even being trialled in September too), but didn't, would suggest some concerns internally. Whether they simply did not want to risk it after a bad season, wanted to change it, or had just lost faith in the system is anyone's guess. But after the plug being pulled, I am somewhat doubtful we will see the return of RnR next year..

RnR advertising was subtle, meaning no one knew about it...
(Please make sure the screen doesn't break again for so long Thorpe!)
Food and Merchandise
Not much to say on the food front, since essentially all my meals were eaten in the aforementioned Fin's Bar this season. Was nice to FINALLY see the Freestyle machines introduced on park, even if it is a shame that it is one unit, by the front of park, and only opened on peak days. Hopefully this can be the beginning of them being rolled out across park though..
Merchandise was once again good this season, as seems to be the case with all the Merlin parks. A nice variety of things, and it was good to see them trial limited edition stock in Fright Nights and WC16 merch. Given how quickly some of the FN stuff sold out, I expect we'll see an even bigger range next season too.


Fin's, as done by Scruffy Dog.

Freestyle pricing.
VIP Experiences
This season, I did coaster climbs on both Colossus and Inferno. These are truly great experiences and something I would roughly recommend people looking into! They are on the pricey side, yes, but as with all things Merlin, there's always going to be an offer on them at one point or another; so jump on them if you see them.
What I find a bit novel about my experiences were the different weather conditions - I did Colossus on a very cold, windy March day, and Inferno on a very wet August one (so both very different to be sunny Swarm experience in 2014). It made for all the experiences to be very different in more ways than one!


These experiences are JoshC. approved.
Loggers Leap - RIP?
After many rumours circulating, Thorpe confirmed via Twitter that Loggers Leap wouldn't open in the 2016 season. However, it isn't clear if this closure is permanent or not. It's hard to know what to believe at the moment, but in any case, the closure of Loggers seriously dents the 'fun for all' ride quota at Thorpe. Fingers crossed that, whatever is happening, we're not left without a log flume for too long...
A Look Ahead
WC16. Simply put, WC16 has to be a success. It has to draw in the crowds and it has to be a well received attraction. If it's not, then I am genuinely worried how badly Thorpe could be affected in the future. What would be the point in throwing large amounts money at Thorpe if it doesn't pay off, especially when Merlin are trying to minimise the aftermath of the Smiler incident?
Personally, I'm still not "excited" for the attraction, since I struggle to get excited over something I know nothing about. However, I'm intrigued by it all, and do really look forward to trying it out, whatever 'it' is.
As for everything else... Well, I have no doubt we'll see the odd touch ups around the park, nothing special, just the standard little bits they've done in recent closed seasons. I'd really like to hope that this is the season they bring back themed areas too. But I would like to see it done right, rather than the park just slapping names to sections of the park, so I wonder if it's a bit too much to ask?
A Personal Touch
As some on here will know, last year I had a brother join me in this funny old world. So, back in March, at a mere 5 months old, my baby brother went on his first trip to Thorpe. Not quite as soon as me (Thorping since I was 6 weeks old, oh yeah), but still a good start...

Just a shame the Carousel couldn't have stuck round a little while longer for his first Thorpe ride!
And that's about it. Unsurprisingly, I said I'd keep things short and I haven't; oh well. Thanks for reading!

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 list of things? With a bit of difficulty, but here we go:
Best Park – Efteling
Yep, not really a difficult one, the quality shines through Efteling completely. Effects fixed over the course of a few days trip, things added for no real reason, and just generally a nice place to be. No matter the season, since there's seemingly ALWAYS something going on.
Best New for 2015 Ride – Baron 1898 - Efteling
I was going to give this to Cu Chulainn, honest. But, yeah. Baron does everything I want from a ride. Theatrical, theming, classy music, fun ride, projection mapping. Ticking all the boxes for a good ride, but what makes it great is the details involved, there are plenty that are easily missed. They've also changed the outdoor batch and made it slightly better, still a weird system though, but it seems to work a lot better now. Baron sums up Efteling very well in everything with it, and I wish there were more like it.
Best “New for Benin” Ride – Troy (TROY!) - Toverland
In hindsight I'm not sure how many stand out rides there were for me this year. Too much mediocrity clearly. However Troy (and Toverland in general) was a rather bright spot this year. Troy is excellent quality and showed why GCI coasters are in general, great additions to a developing park.
Best Water Ride – (H)el Rio - Bobbejaanland
A surprisingly fab Rapids ride, the Halloween décor they had added to it improved it a fair amount, even if the ridiculous Ferris Wheel lift seems to be lifeless these days (would’ve been interesting to experience that), it made up with it with the whirlpool of death as also featured at Bagatelle’s rapids. But the Halloween music, theming and smoke made it so much better than I’m sure it would normally have been.
Best Flat Ride – De Waarbeek’s classic selection
Cheating I know for this one, but quite frankly the couple of classic flat rides available at De Waarbeek were great fun. From the self-propelled Whip to the unrestrained Caterpillar with added cover, a really nice surprise to discover.
Best Dark Ride – U-571
This is how you do a simulator attraction, a real standout from Movieland and sums up the place nicely. Effort and insanity go hand in hand from the naval base theming, the great staff members, to the fact that you have to run down metal steps as water bombs go off. The simulator feels real too, and the lack of restraints adds to the fear. I was fortunate/unfortunate to not experience the WET version too, which apparently ups the ante further. Which sounds insane.
Best Show - Romanes vs Gaules, The Match
New for this year, and Asterix really pulled this out of the bag. This is an amazing show, with a great setup, spoof adverts on the screens, great references to pop culture. Just the effort put into it makes it one of the best shows in a theme park today. Also gains points for having a real dog involved.
Worst Park – Duinrell
A bad atmosphere and even worse rides, there was just something about this park that didn’t end up sitting right with my positive side. Pretty much started downhill with the stupidly long queue to enter the place, followed by a massive walk around a caravan site. At least most of the other parks I visited this year had some positive elements.
Worst Seaside Park – Hemsby Fun Park
Decided it would be unfair to put Seaside parks in with normal ones this year, Hemsby was a clear winner for this though. The place is an absolute dump.
Worst Coaster – Sequoia Adventure
I had the misfortune of riding this again this year. It cemented its place as the worst coaster I’ve ever been on. No wonder they can’t sell it.
Worst Water Ride – DiVertical
It was closed and spiteful. Tbh, there were no real water rides I went on worthy of this award, so the chance to jump on some Intamin rubbish cant be knocked.
Biggest Surprise – U-571, Movieland Studios
Best dark ride, and biggest surprise in general. The unexpectedness of the attraction is what makes it so unique.
Biggest Disappointment – The Forbidden Caves
I loved Lost Temple in Germany. I really did. So I thought Bobbiejobbie's effort would be as good, but it was lacking a fair bit if I'm honest. The pre shows just felt faffy, as did the long walk to the ride. The story also didn't really work to the ride type. Shame.
The “I forgot actually how good this ride was” Award – Oz’Iris – Parc Asterix
A new award, purely for Oz'Iris if I'm honest. Its so good! Better than Katun in my book now, and shows that just because B&M don't go ridiculously intense anymore doesn't stop them creating real gems.
The “WTF was that?” Award – Revolution, Bobbejaanland
Just... I don't even know tbh... From the 30 car train in the curved station, the weird seating arrangement, the underground train sounds, the massive round lift hill room with the screen to the tiny descending drops in the outside. Revolution was certainly an enigma.
Why is this under-rated? Ride - Goliath - Walibi World
This is better than Expedition GeForce. There I said it. Where GeForce I found lacklustre last year, Goliath this year was seemingly a breath of fresh air for me. Perhaps the layout, perhaps the lax ride ops meaning no stapling, but it's just something about Goliath that made it a better overall ride than it's highly rated German counterpart.
Strangest Park – Movieland Studios
I've already mentioned U-571, but the rest of the park deserves credit too. Magma 2.0 is a fantastic experience, whereas things like Terminator (interactive shooting gallery) and Kitt Superjet (waterjet attraction) seemingly add to the insanity. The Rambo stunt show was also fab, and involved ACTUAL volunteers. It really is just a random and entertaining place.
Best Park related Experience – The Plopsaland Backstage Tour
A whole morning finding out about Plopsa and a full on tour of the backstage. It was informative though really, and worth it was the cred anxiety that took place. I wish Plopsa would open something in the UK.
Worst Park related Experience – Gardaland’s Express Pass Problem
Oh Merlin, even when barely going in the UK you still curse me. Providing AP holders with unlimited Fastrack for €80 for the year was never going to end well, and it pretty much ruined the day at Garda as a result. If they ever bring it over to the UK, their fan won't be able to move.
Best Ride Experience – Sky Drop Tower – Tivoli Friheden
Kinda pushing the definition of ride, but I'm glad I did this. Summed up you go up a tower, winched up and then free fall into a net. The tower is tall. The experience of literally free falling attached to nothing is something no other ride can fulfill. Well worth the money (£5).
Milestones – 450th (Hembsy Caterpillar), 500th (Formule X)

As we know, next month will see Thorpe Park give a slight retheme to their 115ft drop tower, Detonator. A general shift in target market has to led to the perhaps knee-jerk reaction to bring in a family-themed area, and the easiest way to go about that would be an IP. So we have 'Angry Birds Land', and Detonator will become 'Detonator: Bombs Away'. Who knows what this slight retheme will bring? Well, we will find out in little under a month's time anyway.
With most eyes focused on the future, I've decided to turn my head and look back on the past. Detonator opened 13 years ago and is a staple thrill ride within the heart of the park. The ride and its overall experience have remained pretty much constant, so the ride's history seems far from exciting. However, the circumstances in which the ride even came to the park and the behind the scenes stories are far more interesting...
The story starts on a Friday afternoon, in July 2000. A smoker discarded their cigarette into some bushes, which quickly started a fire; 'The Thorpe Park Fire'. Slight damage was done to Mr Rabbit's Tropical Travels. However, substantial damage was done to the nearby Wicked Witch Haunt ride.
Wicked Witch Haunt was so severely damaged it could not be saved; the building was completely destroyed. Of course, the ride needed replacing. At this time, there were very few major rides at Thorpe, and the multi-million pound, record-breaking Colossus was in its planning stages. So the ride had to be cheap and not steal the limelight from that. Also, Thorpe were still very much a family-park, with a big focus on family rides. So the ride had to appeal to a large audience.
The park's first choice was, however, not Detonator. Instead, it was this:

Photo from Wikipedia
It was a standard Vekoma SLC! The photo shows Traumatizer at Pleasureland Southport, and was later moved to Blackpool Pleasure Beach and named Infusion. The ride is a family roller coaster, very simple, nothing too special or exciting. Plus, it was quick and easy to construct. At the time, it would have fit the park perfectly. The plans were very quickly rushed together and submitted to the council (in fact, Traumatizer was used to judge noise levels for this new coaster). And, from what I can gather, they were approved. Unfortunately, the plans themselves are not online at all, so the exact look, location of the ride is unknown to me! But why was no such coaster built?
Well, very simply put, it came down to troubles with the energy supply! The plan was to get the ride opened for summer 2001. However, associated costs with the ride and power supply for the ride (whatever that means) meant it wouldn't open by then. So the plans were shelved.
At this point, we're in October 2000. The 2001 season would start in March; a mere 5 months away. So Thorpe's management decided to go for a drop tower. Due to the naturally thin structure, it would have little 'visual pollution', it was quick to construct and, though quite thrilling, did temporarily fill in a missing part of the park's line up at the time. Note - temporarily. The original plan was the have the ride operating for 1 season, then replace it with what another coaster. This is why Detonator 'broke through' Thorpe's height ceiling of 100ft - it was only meant to be around for a year and it was under special circumstances!
Everything was all approved and everything was all good. Detonator opened at the start of the 2001 season, along with Zodiac and Vortex (funnily enough, Vortex opened rather late and the park were investigated by Watchdog for misrepresentation. Oops). Colossus was under construction and was hoped to put Thorpe Park 'on the map'. Behind the scenes, plans for a new roller coaster, namely Nemesis Inferno, were well underway.
However, something unexpected happened. Detonator was popular. Really popular. In fact, it averaged "over 9 out of 10" on customer reviews. No park can afford to get rid of a ride that is THAT popular. It had to stay. So the utmost was done to ensure allowed for the ride to stay. Fortunately, the layout allowed for this to be the case.
There was still one more problem though. The ride only had temporary planning approval. By the end of 2001, they would have to take it down. So an extension to this application was sought after. It was by no means a guarantee approval would be given, due to the fact the ride was tallest on park. But, fortunately, the ride was approved for another, temporary, 5 years.
Why only 5 years? Well, Detonator was not in Thorpe's long term plans and it's a fairground ride. Could 6 years of constant operation be too much it? Would it maintain popularity for 5 more years? Would it fit in with the park then? The park weren't too sure.
Of course, the ride stayed, and the park applied for permanent approval of the ride, which was granted. In fact, the MTDP at the time even indicated a second drop tower joining Detonator, but alas, it never happened.
Detonator is, in terms of G-forces, the most intense ride on park. It's regarded as one of the better drop towers in the world and works so well within Thorpe Park. Yet the ride only arrived due to a series of accidents and misfortunes that the park had to get over. Had those accidents never happened, the park could well be very different and - in my opinion - worse off. Would we ever had gotten Inferno if a Vekoma SLC was put in place? Would said SLC still be here today? Would Thorpe be as popular as it is now? Who knows! All I know is that, 13 years later, Detonator remains a favourite to all. How nice, ey?
May Detonator stand tall for many more years, regardless of theme...

"Detonation...complete"
Disclaimer: I cannot guarantee 100% accuracy behind this information. A lot of the information was deduced from past planning applications and, in some cases, such applications were not always complete. Should there be any information which you believe to be incorrect, please feel free to leave a comment and say so!

Next month, Universal Studios Florida introduce their 'Diagon Alley' expansion to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. It sees the headline attraction 'Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts', the Hogwarts Express, as well as numerous shops from the Harry Potter universe.
As to be expected, everyone is excited about the development. However, why should we be so excited? We've got a newly opened area which is much better than Diagon Alley ever could be - Angry Birds Land at Thorpe Park! Travelling all the way to America seems pointless when most of us on this forum can pop down to Thorpe in under a couple of hours to enjoy the delightful Angry Birds Land.
First of all, let's look at the rides and attractions in each area. Angry Birds Land has a 115ft drop tower, perfect for thrill seekers, some fun dodgems, which are perfect for everyone, and a 4D cinema experience, which again is perfect for everyone. So, here, we have a land which caters for all ages - we have a ride which is solely dedicated for a thrill audience.
As far as thrill rides go, Detonator: Bombs Away! is as thrilling as you can get; there's not many better drop towers around after all. Then there's a good set of dodgems. Okay, so dodgems aren't anything special, you can find them anywhere. But people like dodgems, and if people like something, you give it to them! Finally, the 4D experience is clearly something that's been designed for a younger audience, yet it works for everyone. What's most surprising about it is how immersive the attraction felt - it's a film about a set of cartoon birds, who don't speak, trying to get the precious eggs back from some bad pigs. Yet you feel a part of the film, you can create emotional bonds with the birds, and you feel like you're there with them. For a cartoon, that's pretty darn impressive.
Now, Diagon Alley. We have a headline attraction being ride about escaping from a bank. Escaping...from a bank. Just let that sink in for a moment. And this will have loads of goblins scattered about. Not gonna lie, those goblins looked pretty hideous in the films, I imagine they'll look even more hideous in real life. Not exactly a family-friendly thing to have is it? Especially considering this is already a ride about escaping from a bank that you've broken into (great moral values there!). Now, this ride is apparently some epic dark ride/coaster combo. These types of rides are always risks, since some people's expectations can really shape how they react to the ride. Expect a coaster, you may be left unthrilled. Expect a dark ride, you may be left unimmersed. It's a really, really big risk.
Then you've got a train ride linking two parks together. Now, it will of course be more like a 4D experience, and this all sounds well and good. But it's not going to be easy to create a 4D experience about a franchise which already has so much going for it; very difficult to create an emotional link to the story. I have so many concerns.
Then there's also theming. Okay, Angry Birds Land's theming isn't the greatest, and there's room for more. However, let's step back and look at what Diagon Alley's theming will entail. Firstly, there's a dragon that breaths fire. Fantastic. That's better than anything at Angry Birds Land. However, this dragon doesn't move, from the looks of it at least. Talk about unrealistic! What's the point in having a creature for theming if it doesn't move. You're meant to be in a world where a dragon has just escaped; it's not gonna stand still, lording it over everyone else puffing some fire occasionally. It's going to move.
Angry Birds Land's theming at least makes sense; you're in a snapshot of a game, where some birds have just been catapulted, others are about to be, and so forth. It makes perfect sense to the story. Diagon Alley's dragon does not. Then there's all the shop fronts. They're shop fronts from shops in a back alley in London. Where's the excitement in that? The transportation to a whole new world? You can't get that here. It's basically just like walking down a part of London with shops you've never seen before (which isn't exactly difficult). Poor theming really; it's taken realism a step too far.
There's other things as well. Harry Potter is an outdated IP. The last book was released 7 years ago. The last film 3 years ago. Even if it's still popular, and there's a spin off film series on the way, the main Harry Potter IP is outdated. It's got little more than nostalgia now. It's time to let go. Take away the nostalgia and all we have is a kid's story that finished many years ago, and whilst still memorable, should be left alone, instead of picked away until its dignity has gone away. Angry Birds is about to get its second wave of popularity. There's a major film to be released in 2016. Mobile gaming is still huge, and a new game could easily make it to the top in 24 hours. Now that's a popular and current IP for you.
I think that's all I need to get my point across. Harry Potter is an outdated IP, and Diagon Alley is shaping up to be an overhyped dark ride that teaches bad moral values and a 4D experience which could go really well or really badly. Perhaps not the best family area. Angry Birds, however, is a current, popular, IP, with Angry Birds Land having a quality 4D experience and rides for everyone, which everyone will enjoy. It also teaches good moral values (don't steal, fight for what you believe in, yadda yadda yadda). If that's not quality, I don't know what is.
So save your money. Avoid Diagon Alley. Save yourself the disappointment. Take a trip down to Thorpe Park and bask in the greatness that is Angry Birds Land, and smile to yourself that you're in a better place than some hocus pocus area set about robbing a bank. You deserve it.

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.
---
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!

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.
---
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!

Roman Roaming: Highlights from Italy, Part 2
 
Ciao! You've found Part 2 of my Roman Roaming Trip Report - if you've not yet seen Part 1, it's worth checking that out first. Part 2 continues with the tour around the land of pizza, pasta and Mario Balotelli, and includes the following Parks:
 
Part 2
Mirabilandia, Ravenna Ai Pioppi, Treviso Etnaland, Sicily  

 
Bellissimo. Let's dive straight in!
 
Mirabilandia
 

 
Mirabilandia is Italy's #2 Theme Park, yet can hardly be called "conveniently located"; its closest major city is Ravenna (nope, me neither), and the closest airports are Bologna (90 mins drive), Florence (150 mins drive), and Venice (150 mins drive). You can see the Park skyline for miles in advance of actually getting there, due to the vast area of flat fields and low vegetation that surround it. And yet that doesn't prevent Mirabilandia from being rammed most days of the weekend / holidays, largely by Italians.
 
For this reason, Mirabilandia was the only Park in which I chose to invest in a Flass Pass, which afforded unlimited riding on all rides all day. It operated via a wristband system, and dedicated ride entrances - flash the wristband, and you're let straight on. Very similar to Thorpe's Ultimate Fastrack (£80), but with less need to re-mortgage your house, at just €39 (approx. £28).
 
Few of the locals had opted for the Flash Pass, so it turned out to be a highly worthwhile purchase - namely for the numerous laps I managed on Katun, unarguably one of the best B&M inverts in the world.
 

 
No doubt many of you on here will have ridden Katun, but for those that haven't, there is a very good reason that it has placed in and around the top 10 in Mitch Hawker's annual Best Steel Coaster Poll for the last 10 years. Only Alton's own Nemesis can boast a similar record as an Invert.
 
And why? Katun's sense of speed is hard to beat. The steep first drop is a genuinely thrilling, high-octane rush of a start (which consistently gave me an shot of adrenaline that few rides do), and from there the ride never lets up, with a layout including a very floaty zero-G, and a very speedily-taken cobra roll. The final helix, again taken at some speed, with riders' feet nearly brushing the dense vegetation that has grown up around it, is another highlight, and an excellent end to the ride.
 

 
It's very hard to make the call as to which is the better inverted coaster vs. Nemesis, but Katun wins points for a simply stunning first drop, and for the sheer relentless-ness of the ride. Nemesis benefits from its greater number of near-misses, given its location in the pit, arguably a better theme, and an excellent final corkscrew inversion that - as an ending - just edges out Katun's. It's interesting to note that both Nemesis and Katun are "old school" B&Ms, having been built in 1994 and 2000 respectively, and there's a pretty solid argument that the Swiss manufacturer have edged away from these more intense inverted layouts in recent years (although Asterix's excellent OzIris can perhaps make a counter argument here).
 
At the end of the day, one ride Katun alone is worth the flight out to Mirabilandia. Book it now.
 

 
Mirabilandia also offers an attractive set of supporting rides, including the visually impressive Intamin Water Coaster, DiVertical. Opened in 2012 (and initially mired with technical problems), DiVertical remains the tallest Water Coaster in the world, with its 197ft elevator lift structure towering over the skyline.
 
Boats meander along a concrete trough towards the bottom of the lift, where they are loaded individually onto a platform - connected to one side of the dual-pronged structure - that raises the boat up to the top. The bulbous middle of the elevator lift is to allow for another platform with an empty boat - connected to the other side - to descend alongside the ascending platform containing riders. It's a very speedy process, and hats must be tipped to Intamin for making it so efficient.
 
The drop itself is a fun one - not overly steep, but longer to compensate, and the minimal lap-bar restraints ensure riders feel vulnerable during the descent.
 

 
The initial splashdown is mild, with the track barely skimming the water - the proper dose of H2O is to come. The boat careers over a well-profiled airtime hill, a couple of turns, and downward helix, before making a proper splash back down into the trough. As you can see, riders should not expect to come away dry from the experience - but in the scorching Italian summer, I didn't see one person who cared.
 
I was expecting to enjoy DiVertical, but I really enjoyed DiVertical - Intamin may well have a ride that betters Mack's well-received Water Coaster. Intamin's track is smoother (), and there is real tension built by the lift structure. Colour me surprised, but I wouldn't mind seeing more of these pop up in the warmer Parks of the world.
 

 
Continuing the Intamin theme, Mirabilandia also hosts one of the better layouts of the Intamin Accelerator in iSpeed. Opened in 2009, iSpeed accelerates from 0 - 60mph in 2.2 seconds (not dissimilar to Rita), up a 180ft top hat (not dissimilar to Stealth). What follows thereafter though is dissimilar to both UK Accelerators - a further 2,500ft of twisty, airtime-filled track, including a corkscrew and inline twist.
 
The layout is great fun, fairly intense, and taken at some speed - indeed, the ride actually hits its top speed (74mph) well after the LSM launch. What prevented it becoming a brilliant ride for me was alas the restraints - the same as those featured on Stealth and Rita.
 
As you will know, these restraints have a thin over the shoulder design, with weighty bars that sit over riders' thighs. And actually this design is pretty bearable (but wouldn't go as far to say comfy) on the UK Accelerators. But on iSpeed, where there are numerous quick direction changes, and multiple pops of ejector airtime, the restraints just became painful, making re-riding a not-too-attractive prospect.
 
I managed 5 goes (with the Flash Pass), and found towards the end that the best way to ride was to use my hands to push up against the shoulder bracing on the OSTRs, to stabilise me and alleviate the pressure from the lap bar on my thighs. In this position, the air time didn't crush my legs against the solid, straight bar as much, and the direction changes didn't slice my neck with the shoulder bracing as much. But I shouldn't have to do this to enjoy the ride - rides should be comfortable and afford the rider as much freedom as possible.
 
In sum: great layout, hampered by poor trains, 7/10. If Mack could build iSpeed but with their Mega Coaster trains, that would be amazing, thankyouverymuch.
 

 
Mirabilandia is also host to Niagara, a very wet 100ft Shoot the Chutes flume, Reset, an excellent post-apocalyptic New York-themed laser shooter Dark Ride, and Eurowheel, Europe's largest ferris wheel, which stands tallest in the Park's skyline at 300ft.
 
It's also well known for its expensive-looking stunt show, which gets refreshed yearly. After many seasons running with a "Police Academy" theme, this year Mirabilandia debuted a new Grosso Guaio a Stunt City Show ("Big Trouble in Stunt City"), in collaboration with Hot Wheels - which meant the Park could generate extra cash through placing Hot Wheels kits for sale in every retail outlet on Park.
 
The arena set looked great, and after a pretty slow start (15 mins of talking, "comedy", more talking, and some audience participation), the eventual stunts were pretty impressive. It was the usual fare: car chases, motorbike jumps, dumper trucks doing wheelies; but the stand out moment came in the finale, where "Europe's first" real-life loop-the-loop stunt was unveiled. The green Hot Wheels-branded car attacks it with some speed and the chassis actually connects with a trough in the loop to keep it on course through the manoeuvre, but it's nonetheless an impressive visual spectacle, especially in combination with the trigger-happy pyrotechnics used throughout the show!
 
Great fun, and a nice way to end the day at one of the more impressive Italian Parks.
 

 
Ai Pioppi
 
From the sublime to the ridiculous... this next Park couldn't be more different to Miribilandia if it tried.
 
Presenting Ai Pioppi. Ai Pioppi ("the poplars") is an "osteria" - literally translated as a "bar" or "tavern". It's actually more of a restaurant, and is nestled in the woodland 30 minutes drive north of Treviso (an hour north of Venice).
 
All very good, but why did a family-run restaurant feature in my roam around Italy?
 
Because, of course, this particular restaurant has roller coasters...
 

 
The restaurant itself is pretty rustic - the menu most comprising steak, fish, and polenta slices all being cooked on large hot plates together. Chips were also available. The outdoor seating area has been built to cater for crowds, with large numbers of benches and tables scattered around the expansive undercover area next to the kitchen.
 
Pricing was highly reasonable, and the food was tasty enough. There was even a nicer indoor section for the more formal meal out.
 
But you didn't come here for a food review...
 

 
Ai Pioppi is a restaurant with a difference, as the back of it features an entirely hand-built playground filled with rides ranging from swings, slides, seesaws, gyroscopes, flat rides and even roller coasters!
 
Some history: on June 15th 1969, a man named Bruno bought himself a few jugs of wine, some sausages and a few other items, and set up a tiny food stand underneath a tree in northern Italy to see if anyone would show up. By the end of the day - to his surprise - he had sold almost everything and the family restaurant, Ai Pioppi, was born.
 
The next month he had an encounter with a blacksmith who didn’t have time to make a few hooks for some chains. Bruno decided instead he would learn to weld to make the hooks, and enjoyed it so much he began to dream up small rides he could build to entice new customers to Ai Pioppi.
 
40 years later, and Bruno is still building rides by hand. And admission for these rides remains free for all patrons of his restaurant.
 

 
This is the workshop from which Bruno dreams up, and subsequently builds, new rides.
 

 
And this is the man himself - in his element as architect and manufacturer of his restaurant's attractions... and seemingly laughing in the face of retirement!
 

 
So what's on offer? There's too much to show, so here I'll offer some highlights, starting with this "ferris wheel with a difference".
 
Like many of the rides at Ai Pioppi, this attraction uses people-power to operate. Riders (max of 2) climb up the ladder to get to the central platform, where there are walkways to each opposite end. The way to make the wheel turn is for the riders to distribute their weight by walking (either forwards or backwards - different direction by each) in the smaller wheels situated at each end. With each rider moving around their respective mini-wheels, the central wheel turns, and it's entirely possible to complete a full 360 turn (and for riders to remain fairly upright) if both participants get the hang of it.
 
Fascinating to watch, and fairly daunting to ride - there are no restraints to speak of, only a handlebar to hold, so it's quite easy to see this going wrong with a mis-step or two...
 

 
Onto another hand-built kinetic wonder. In this ride, guests sit in cages and pedal what most closely resembles a bicycle, in order to drive their carriage around the large loop. There are heavy counterweights at the other ends of the pendulums, which enables a decent momentum to be built up - hard work to start with, but it's not too difficult to get into a rhythm and build up enough power to get close to inverting.
 
The best I managed was to get my cage to the 1-o-clock position on the "clock"; not quite enough to get to "12-o-clock" and beyond to make the full inversion. There were three reasons for this:
 
1) Momentum runs out very quickly when your cage (the heavier part) reaches any height, meaning a huge effort is required on the pedals to continue to push it over the top;
2) The "restraints" consisted of two curved shoulder bars, not unlike the ones featured on Thorpe's Slammer, but with zero padding, so they hurt really quite a lot when your entire body weight starts to rest on them, and;
3) By the time I'd pedalled all the way to "1-o-clock", I was fairly terrified of the entire contraption.
 

 
Moving on, to the 4 roller coasters that exist at Ai Pioppi.
 
Two were unfortunately not operating during my visit; the oldest, Bob, had a large twig over the tracks and the gate to access it was padlocked. Unfortunately, my Italian wasn't good enough to ask Bruno what was wrong. The second, Catapulta, has been "Under Construction" for 5+ years now, although given that it looked like it was attempting a petrifying Stealth-like launch using a counterweight system, this wasn't a huge issue for me...
 
The Carrello della Gobba ("Cart with a Hump") was open, and is a fairly sizable butterfly / shuttle ride with a c.30 degree incline, a bunny hop after the initial drop, and a steep (nearly vertical) ramp at the other end. Being similarly "people-powered", riders have to push the single-person cart to the top of the incline (on the left) until it locks into place at the top, get into the thing, lower and lock the "restraint", and release the brake on the floor of the cart to start the descent...
 

 
Given my previous experience with the flat rides, and the appearance of the cart (below), I was needless to say rather apprehensive about releasing the brake (had Bruno ever heard of ADIPS?!). However, my fears were (mostly) unfounded, as Carrello della Gobba gave a pleasantly smooth ride, marred only by the extreme ejector airtime over the bunny hop, which would have certainly thrown me (to some considerable height) out of the cart, had the painful metal thigh-restraint not prevented me from doing so. Ow.
 
The ride also takes a fair time to finish, because there is nothing to stop the cart once its been released at the top; it just continues to shuttle forwards, and backwards, and forwards, until friction alone brings it to a slow enough speed to get out of it unharmed.
Most riders came off with grins on their faces, and bruises on their thighs!
 

 
But the emotions stirred by Carrello della Gobba were nothing in comparison to Ai Pioppi's headline attraction, the Pendolo ("Pendulum").
 
Pendolo, like Carrello, is a butterfly / shuttle ride, but on a much grander scale, and without the bunny hop. Built 15 years after the original Bob coaster, Pendolo towers well above every other construction in the woodland, including the trees.
 
When we approached the ride, it was considered a write-off; the cart was covered up, and the railings sported signs saying "Closed" and "Under Maintenance". Given the sheer size of the thing, and the disconcerting yellow sign that advertised "maximum speeds of 100 km/hour", I would be lying if I said that a tiny part of me wasn't a tiny part relieved that I wouldn't be riding today...
 

 
But as we were eating our steak and polenta for lunch, Bruno had other ideas... and set to work fixing up the Pendolo to get it into operation!
 
When the first test car ascended the incline - shunning people-power this time, being driven by a pulley system with motor - we all held our breath as to whether the car would complete the run successfully, given the rampant foliage growing up through the track...
 

 
...but complete successfully it did, making a huge clattering racket as it thundered through the bottom of the half-pipe and up the towering steep ramp the other side. Much like Carrello, there was no braking mechanism, so the ride took around 3 minutes of coasting up and down each side of the track to slow down enough to (manually) pull the car to a halt for the oncoming riders.
 
And then it was my turn. Getting into the 3-across car, featuring seats still covered in leaves and head rests that had clearly been "borrowed" from a Fiat 500, I had rarely been more nervous for a ride. Not even the Vietnamese coaster with the non-locking OTSRs last year had me as worried as this one did, and I'm unashamed to say that at the point the car was released at the top of the slow incline, I shrieked like a little girl.
 
Whether we hit 100 km/hour or not, I will never know, but it could well have been; thankfully the near-vertical ramp that greeted us at the other side was quick to take the speed out of the car, and back down we went. The adrenaline rush was massive; 80% due to pure fear, 20% due to the thrill of the (impressively smooth) ride.
 
I have no doubt that the first time I rode Colossus, way back when, I experienced a similar level of nerves and excitement (10 loops! OMG!). But having grown older and more travelled, it's become harder and harder to re-create that pure adrenaline rush. Ferarri World's Formula Rossa did it for me last year, but then it had to launch me to 149mph across the Arabian desert to do so.
 
All the more kudos then, to Bruno, for giving me such intense "fear and thrills" feelings all over again on his Pendolo . Bravo!
 

 
In sum, Ai Pioppi is an absolutely bonkers place; as likely to make you soil your underwear in fear as it is to make you drop your jaw in wonder. It's probably a place that I'll never frequent again. But boy, am I glad to have been. Bruno - thank you for the memories, and don't ever stop inventing.
 
For more, there's a mini-documentary about Ai Pioppi available on Vimeo that's well worth 11 minutes of your time, here.
 

 
Etnaland
 

 
And finally, a little note on Etnaland. Etnaland is not an easy place to get to; situated on the isle of Sicily, around 30 minutes drive from the town of Catania on the east coast. Even a weekend trip over is not the easiest; only Ryanair fly direct from the UK (Stansted), only once a day during peak season, and even then it's a 3 hour+ drive to the Park from Sicily's Palermo airport...
 
This is a shame, because Etnaland is a gem of a Park. It features both a Water Park and a Theme Park, and in the summer season opens the former 9am - 6pm, and the latter 7:30pm - 1am. The only overlapping attractions to the Parks are the Jungle Splash (Shoot the Chutes with a vertical lift, below), and the Crocodile Rapids (Hafema Rapids) rides - and in the daytime, both rides add huge volumes of water to the experience (e.g. Crocodile Rapids has a massive waterfall directly over the rapids trough; in the evening, this is switched off... in the daytime, it is not...).
 
Ride either of these "Theme Park" rides in the daytime without wearing "Water Park" attire (e.g. swimming costume) at your peril...!
 

 
As for the Theme Park, it boasts a (surprisingly) excellent S&S Mine Train, Eldorado, which offers a wonderfully drawn-out first drop, detailed mountain rock work, and impressive forces on the downward helices. More mine trains from S&S, please! Other supporting rides include the novel The School dark ride, featuring desks and multi-choice questions rather than the usual laser guns, Quasar, a Zamperla Disk'O coaster, and the imaginatively-titled Etnaland Tower, a standard 200ft S&S Double Shot (elevated above others by offering excellent views of a certain Mount Etna...).
 
The real reason to make the effort to get to Etnaland, however, is The Storm, one of the first Mack MegaCoasters built after the debut of Blue Fire in Europa Park in 2009. I love the comfort of the Mack MegaCoaster trains, and was intrigued as to how this one would ride, especially compared to my experiences on Helix (review), and Alpina Blitz (review).
 
Happily, I can report that The Storm is an excellent ride; smooth, with a few pop of airtime, and an absolute killer Mack-trademark inline twist at the end of the course (akin to Blue Fire), but with the added bonus of a loud thunder crack being played by a nearby speaker when the train travels through it. It's infinitely re-ridable and has a great "rock and roll" theme, with heavy metal being blasted out through the queue line every time a train ascends the lift hill! Catch a POV of it here.
 
So how does it compare? It's certainly a brilliant ride... but lacks the insane airtime of Alpina Blitz, the length and terrain of Helix, and the theming and near misses of Blue Fire... so unfortunately doesn't compare quite as well to these similar Mack rides. It also could have done with being a little more forceful. But given the overall quality of the Mack product, there is absolutely nothing for Etnaland to be ashamed of - The Storm easily outstrips a large majority of the other coasters I've ridden. Top notch work from Mack, again.
 
And at 1am, with its LED lighting package shining bold in the moonlight, it looks bloody good too.
 

 
~
 
In short, I'd thoroughly recommend checking Italy out - both as a "normal" tourist and a "coaster" tourist; the country is packed with variety, and this trip report has barely scratched the surface of what's on offer.
 
And worth re-iterating again: whilst many of the Parks showcased here are relatively easy to get to for your average coaster enthusiast, touring the whole country and hitting everything is rather more tricky - which is why unlike my previous Trip Reports, for Italy I was with a large group from the European Coaster Club. If you've not heard of the ECC, membership is £25.50 a year, and that buys you 6 issues of the excellent First Drop magazine, a bunch of discounts for Parks across Europe, and of course access to trips such as the one I've described here
 
Thanks for reading!

Roman Roaming: Highlights from Italy, Part 1
 
Ciao! You may well consider that writing up a two-week, 3,500km road trip around the coasters of Italy, covering 16 parks, 6 fairs and thousands of photos, would be quite the drawn out process - and you'd be right. So please forgive me for opting to showcase the highlights here instead; the stand-out, the fun, and the unusual.
 
Italy is a fantastic place to be a tourist - from the 2,000 year old ruins of Pompeii, to the narrow backwaters of pretty Venice, to the imposing Dolomites and other mountainous regions across the country - there's no shortage of things to see and do. Add to the list the ancient sites in Rome, Pisa's Leaning Tower, and the stunning islands in the South to enjoy, and I can think of few other European countries with so much variety to offer a traveller. It's also a country that's rapidly growing its coaster count, with an array of high-budget new Theme Parks opening their doors in the very recent past (Miragica; 2009, Etnaland; 2010, Rainbow Magicland; 2011, and Cinecittà World; 2014, to name a few).
 
I've chosen a select few of the Parks I visited over the Italy tour to highlight here:
 
Part 1
Cinecittà World, Rome Gardaland, Lake Garda Cavallino Matto, Livorno  
Part 2
Mirabilandia, Ravenna Ai Pioppi, Treviso Etnaland, Sicily  

 
Bellissimo. So, in no particular order, on with the Trip Reports!
 
Cinecittà World
 

 
Cinecittà World, the newest Park in Italy having opened only in July last year, is situated a 45 minute drive south of Rome. There is a once-daily shuttle bus that runs from Rome to the Park (departing 09:30, returning 18:15) for the sum of £10, but alas no clear other public transport options - so if you've not got a vehicle, it's the shuttle bus or bust! This is a shame, given that the Park opens until 23:00 in the Summer as standard...
 
The €250m Park is something of a Universal Studios of Italy - Cinecittà is the largest film studio in Europe, and counts Martin Scorsese among its regulars. For the studio, which has fallen from over 350 productions a year in their heyday, to just 50 in the last six years, Cinecittà World represents an entry into an adjacent market to grow again and bring freshness to the brand.
 
And it's an absolutely gorgeous Park. Brand spanking new, and gobsmackingly pretty. Below is the entrance, where naturally there is a red carpet for guests to walk down. Every day, the Park stages a 15 minute "welcome" show upon opening, where a large cast of singers and dancers perform whilst slowly retreating backwards down "Cinecittà Street" (1920s New York), which connects the entrance to the main Park plaza. Visitors walk down Cinecittà Street with the cast, and upon reaching the central plaza, the show finishes with a flourish and the rides all officially open. Nice touch!
 

 
Wisened readers will probably have already guessed why I've included Cinecittà in this report - it is of course home to a near-clone of our very own beloved(?) 10-looper Colossus. Inexplicably named Altair CCW-0204 (no, I didn't really get the theme...), the ride is identical to Thorpe's own but for a few differences: a re-profiled first drop, a faster cable lift hill, and lapbar trains.
 
And in the clear blue skies of the hot Italian summer, it looked great
 

 
The cobra roll and final inline twist that we are all so used to seeing in Staines. Note that Intamin have gone for their newer "box" supports, rather than the cylindrical columns of Colossus.
 

 
And these are the lapbar trains, affording the rider a huge deal more upper-body freedom, if not that much more lower-body freedom (there was still not exactly an abundance of space for legs and feet to be positioned...).
 

 
So how did the train compare? The short answer is that the new trains are a vast, vast improvement on Colossus' own, and Thorpe should invest in a new set immediately. They improve the ride experience dramatically, especially during the final 5 inlines, where the train almost throws riders out of their seats with only a single bar holding them in - superb.
 

 
The more nuanced answer is that the ride still isn't perfect. Whilst the new trains are a vast improvement, they are still rattly - Altair does not provide the glass-smooth experience that you might expect from e.g. a Mack Mega Coaster. And true to form, the seats towards the back were rougher than those at the front (the same, constantly vibrating roughness that Colossus exhibits - just less so).
 
Intamin's version of the lap bar also proves sub-optimal; the lap bar on these trains are exactly that: just a solid, straight bar. They don't mould around your thighs (Mack), or pin your hips (S&S), or hug your stomach (Maurer). They are just a solid, straight bar - and as such were a little uncomfortable, especially through the inlines: your thighs just slam into them (and full body weight rest on them) on every inversion.
 
It's by no means a deal breaker, and Altair remains a substantially improved experience over Colossus, but there's still work to do for Intamin to perfect the 10-looper model. That said, it's hard not to like the ride, with its futuristic theming, faster lift hill, and steeper, more thrilling first drop. I still enjoy Colossus, and Altair betters it.
 

 
A quick shoutout to the other headline rides at Cinecittà - Darkmare is a rightly well-received Intamin Family Drop Coaster, that has a much better "coaster" section than Thirteen at Alton, and a much worse "drop" sequence than Thirteen at Alton. Housed entirely inside (the building is ginormous), the first 2/3rds of the ride features some thrilling (and super smooth) transitions through drops and swoops around Darkmare's impressive "Hell" themeing.
 
The final 1/3 of the ride - the drop sequence - has none of the drama of Alton's effort: the train approaches a giant screen showing a winged Roman "Satan" figure surrounded by flames and oozing blood. With no warning, the train performs the 5m drop (unlike Thirteen: no bouncing, no bangs), and winds back to the station.
 
Nonetheless, a good attraction - and infinitely re-rideable.
 

 
More impressive themeing is showcased on Mack's longest Supersplash ride: Aktium. Inspired by Ben Hur, the ride has two drops and a splash zone for watchers, which proved popular in the midday heat.
 

 
And with Cinecittà clearly having done a 3-attraction deal with Intamin, the final headline ride is the most impressively themed (bar Disney's Tower of Terror) Drop Tower that I've seen. The actual elephant itself ("Erawan") is a third of the height of the 180ft tower, which features Sit Down, Tilt Sit Down, and Tilt Stand Up Floorless sides. I tried them all, and as with Apocalpyse at Drayton Manor, the Tilt Stand Up ride was by far the most thrilling.
 
Guests enter the ride under the trunk...
 

 
...and exit through the feet. Unbelievably detailed theming work on show here, backed up by a trademark punchy Intamin drop. I loved it!
 

 
Cinecittà World deserves success - the place looks shiny and spotless, and there is immersive themeing everywhere you look. The Park also offers a kiddie area, 4 backlot sets for guests to wander around, and a blockbuster show, Enigma, which is staged twice a day.
 
However, on the day I visited (a hot Saturday in August), the Park can barely have been breaking even: visitor numbers were low to the point where some Altair trains were not being fully filled before being dispatched. I saw no advertising for Cinecittà in and around Rome (in stark contrast to the ubiquitous adverts for Rainbow Magicland - a Park further away!). Some of the Park's supporting attractions aren't great (the 4D Immersive Tunnel is really tedious). And Cinecittà still needs investment to bolster its ride count: there's just not enough there yet to warrant a full day out, especially when crowds are as low as they were.
 
Cinecittà is only a baby - it's just turned one year old - so these complaints are perhaps excusable. Fingers crossed the Park grows and continues to invest in high quality, highly themed experiences.
 
Oh - and it's cheap too; adult tickets start from €23 / £16.75 (compare to Thorpe's £59.99...). Don't miss it if you're visiting Rome!
 
Gardaland
 

 
No doubt you are familiar with Gardaland - one of the larger Parks in Merlin's Resorts portfolio, and set against the stunning backdrop of Italy's Lake Garda.
 
As it's well covered elsewhere, I will spare you a full Trip Report of the place, but needless to say I was impressed. The Park has an extensive ride lineup, all of which are well themed, and the Park itself is pretty vast - it can easily lay claim to being a "Resort" as you'd want at least 2 days to properly do it all in the Summer. Pleasingly, the Park also had a daily opening ceremony featuring Park mascots and confetti cannons, and their suite of bespoke Park-wide music was playing everywhere, which was available to buy on CD for €8 - bargain!
 
The Park has somewhat "grown up" a bit in the last 4 years, with the arrival of two new B&Ms - the second of which debuted this year. Oblivion: The Black Hole wins no awards for creativity (I mean, come on Merlin...), but does deserve recognition for ride experience.
 
I'm an unashamed fan of Krake over at sister Heide Park, so was intrigued as to how Garda's Oblivion would compare. Thankfully it too is a great ride, with bags of floaty airtime (especially in the back row), a great drop, and an interesting (if short) layout in the second half. The airtime hill after the Immelman is some of the best track that B&M have produced in recent years; forceful ejector airtime, great stuff.
 

 
And the ride experience is complemented by the almost universally excellent theming. Case in point is the "black hole" that the train dives into, which appears to suck all manner of objects into it, including a TV outside broadcast van. The queueline is also an interesting one, snaking indoors around high-res floor-to-ceiling screens filled with bespoke-filmed Oblivion content, and other theming set pieces (see the white tent above). The station is filled with an array of mock-security cameras all pointing at the trains (a cynical person would say Merlin over-bought on cameras for the Smiler... ).
 

 
Gardaland's Dive Machine also benefits from a fantastic location, right on the edge of Lake Garda itself. Ascending the lift hill with that view over to your right adds an element that Alton and Heide can't begin to compete with.
 
So which is the preferred Merlin Diver? It's genuinely hard to say, so I'm going to do a lot of fence sitting. Alton's Oblivion is the groundbreaking original, and with the best theme. The trains are bigger, heavier, and the track actually dives into a hole, with very little curvature / bottoming out noticeable as a spectator - hugely worrying for the first time rider! Both the Heide and Garda Dive Machines appear less intimidating, in part due to the fact that they are smaller, and you can see the track bottoming out at the bottom of the dive. But I absolutely love Krake's dive into the creature's mouth and subsequent splashdown for visual impact, and Garda's Oblivion has the better, longer layout of all three rides.
 
Let's just say that they're all enjoyable, hugely re-ridable coasters, and leave it at that. Not going to trouble my Top 10, but I'd ride any of them any day
 

 
Onto the second of the Park's B&Ms: Raptor, opened in 2011, was the original B&M prototype Wing Rider coaster, beating Thorpe's The Swarm by a year. It's another great-looking ride, and I especially enjoyed the "guns" pointing at the train in the station - very atmospheric. The trains look great, and if you think they look remarkably similar to Swarm's, you'd be right: Merlin took a near-replica of the Raptor train design and heavily borrowed from it for Swarm's alien race train shells (saving both $$ and time).
 

 
The ride is really quite different to Swarm's. The Swarm is dominated by that Dive Loop first drop, inversions and helices. Raptor feels far less twisty in comparison - the first drop is a traditional straight one, and there's far more linear track generally, meaning the ride is far more about swooping around the near-miss scenery and generating pops of airtime than Swarm's is. Raptor is also helped by the lush landscaping present at Gardaland - it's built on a hill - so the ride feels faster and more exciting due to the close proximity of the foliage and trees.
 

 
I've yet to ride a Wing Rider that's particularly forceful or intense, but Raptor for me shows off the hardware at its best. Don't get me wrong, being at my local Park, I love the Swarm - particularly the themeing effort and ride storyline. But as a roller coaster, Raptor gives the superior ride. There's more airtime, more near-misses, and it's really bedded in well in its location at Gardaland. For me, there's no fence sitting here:
 
Raptor > The Swarm > Flug der Dämonen (poor pacing, and those vibrations...). Sorry Heide .
 

 
Gardaland easily rivals Alton as Merlin's best Theme Park property, but it's a shame its ride lineup is so inconsistent. As good as Raptor and Oblivion are, they can't excuse the existence of the extended SLC Blue Tornado (one of the most painful SLCs I've ridden; Vekoma should hang their head in shame), or the prototype Screaming Squirrel, Sequoia Adventure (ride it once and no more: why, S&S, why?!). And when the world's longest Wacky Worm, Ortobruco Tour (well over 2 minutes of ride time!), emerges as one of the better coasters in the Park, you know there's some room for improvement...
 
Nonetheless, Gardaland overall's a great Park, and deservedly #8 in Europe. Visit for Oblivion and Raptor, and their superbly themed Intamin Water Coaster, Fuga da Atlantide. If the ride lineup continues to expand along the same trajectory of the last few years, Gardaland has a bright future ahead.
 
Cavallino Matto
 

 
I'll finish off Part 1 with a short note on Cavallino Matto. Cavallino is a regional Park in Tuscany, and a very pretty one at that. The name "Cavallino Matto" literally means "The Crazy Little Horse" in Italian, which goes some way to explaining the Park's strange mascot.
 
With a small selection of flat rides, travelling coasters and a dodgy 4D cinema, it has been relatively unheard of on these shores - until this year, when the Park stepped up and installed their first large-scale 'coaster, Freestyle.
 
Freestyle is a relocated Togo Stand Up coaster from Canada's Wonderland, where it operated for nearly 30 years as SkyRider. Now moved across the Atlantic and given a striking paint job, the ride finds itself with a new lease of life as the star attraction in this smaller Park. And there's no doubt that it looks fantastic.
 
It also means that a certain Park in Tamworth can no longer claim to have "Europe's only Stand Up roller coaster". Sorry, Drayton
 

 
Unfortunately it rides terribly, like most Stand Ups, and all Togo rides (Togo are now not in business, having been bankrupted by a Knott's Berry Farm lawsuit in 2001 over manufacturing defects in their new Windjammer Surf Racers coaster). The ride is fine if the train is going straight, with no horizontal or vertical directional changes... but alas this is the exception rather than the norm, and rib-bruising, head-banging, and manhood-punishing all takes place along the course of the track.
 
Against intuition, the worst parts of the ride are actually the small bunny hops towards the end of the layout; although small, these are taken so quickly that there's a pronounced whiplash effect on those riding. Check out the facial expressions of the riders below and see for yourself...
 
Screams of pain, or delight?
 

 
That said, you can't deny it looks good, and it's certain to do wonders for this fledgling regional Park. I'd ride it any day over Gardaland's Blue Tornado. And one would imagine that after 30 years of operation, Canada's Wonderland sold it off fairly cheaply, so I'd say it was a sound investment for Cavallino.
 
It also gave rise to one of my favourite photos from the trip - Freestyle poking out from above the mass of Tuscany Pine trees that fill the Park's landscape, with the deep blue Mediterranean in the distance. Lovely
 

 
~
 
That ends Part 1 of my Roman Roaming Trip Report - well done for making it this far! If you're keen for more, Part 2 will showcase the thrills of Miribilandia, the terror of Ai Pioppi, and the charm of Etnaland - Sicily's first major Theme Park.
 
A final point: whilst many of the Parks showcased here are relatively easy to get to for your average coaster enthusiast, touring the whole country and hitting everything in 2 weeks is rather more tricky - which is why unlike my previous Trip Reports, for Italy I was with a large group from the European Coaster Club. If you've not heard of the ECC, membership is £25.50 a year, and that buys you 6 issues of the excellent First Drop magazine, a bunch of discounts for Parks across Europe, and of course access to trips such as the one I've described here
 
Thanks for reading!

After a fab night's sleep in our lovely hotel, it was Walibi Belgium day. Out of all the park's we were visiting, Walibi Belgium was the park I was most 'meh' about visiting. All the other parks had one or two attractions that I was really interested in trying out, and in some cases, were parks I wanted to try out for quite a while now. Given how I'd only heard about Bellewaerde a few months ago as well, this perhaps shows how blasé my expectations were for the park.
We set off, giving ourselves what we thought was plenty of time to make the half hour drive to the park for 10am opening. Unfortunately, traffic had made other plans for us. Despite being informed the night before many times of loads of roads being closed, we didn't really think it would affect our journey too much. We were very wrong. With traffic being reminiscent of the M25 at times, we crawled through Brussels and had plenty of time to take in the lesser beautiful surroundings of the city (as well as slowly pass plenty of news crews..). Anyways, we eventually made it out of Brussels and made some good time on getting to Walibi at about 11am.
Unsurprisingly, the park was relatively busy, and there seemed to be a lot of school trips going on. With the major coasters at the front of the park, we decided to leave them till later and head over to the back of the park. Our first stop was Challenge of Tutankhamon; A Sally Corp laser shooter dark ride. Unsurprisingly themed around Ancient Egypt, the ride only had a 5 minute wait, and so was a good first ride choice. It was a fun ride, with some great theming. It was nice that not all of the ride involved shooting, giving you a chance to appreciate the actual theme and story. Not a huge fan of the guns and shooting system, but I assume it's the same for all Sally Corp rides?

Following rides on Octopus, a weird but fun spinning ride, and Salsa y Fietsa, the quirky-named Teacups, we moved onto the first coaster of the day. It had to be none other than La Coccinelle, the park's kiddie cred. It had no queue and the op didn't seem to mind 4 adults having a go on the ride. Nothing more than one for the coaster count to me, but it was a bit of a laugh...

Octopus


Some wandering round happened, before we opted to do Flashback, a log flume. It had quite a long queue, and most of it was in a horrid indoor cattlepen which was quite warm and sweaty. There was some bits of theming and it was out of the very warm sun though, so it could be worse I s'pose. The ride starts off in a great little tunnel section which all of us adored. It was a decent log flume too - three drops, including one backwards one, and a suitable level of wetness for me. Certainly my favourite of the 3 we had done so far.


I had a little nosey at construction for their coaster on the way to Flashback.

A sorta-view of the main drop of Flashback, featuring styled bins!
Next up was Le Palais du Genié. After reading about the ride the night before, we realised that this was another Vekoma madhouse. I was excited to try out another one! I felt like that the standard pre show for it was a bit long and laborious, but maybe it was because I put less effort into trying to follow along with the French sections (I think the talking was done in French and Dutch?). However, I really enjoyed the ride segment; everything just seemed to work well and it just had a nice little set up. But what really surprised with this was how, at the end of the ride, people started clapping. It was a loud clap of appreciation and utter joy. It started mostly from a group of school kids, but everyone else - who had seemed to enjoy the ride as well - started to join in shortly afterwards. I've never experienced something like that away from a large group of enthusiasts. So I think that shows that the ride is fairly decent. It's not a Hex-beater for me, but I still think it's very good.
I think we were contemplating lunch now, but the lure of blood was too big a temptation, so we headed over to Vampire, a Vekoma SLC. Once again, another first for me and, much like with the Vekoma Boomerang, I was a bit unsure what to expect after hearing many mixed reviews. We joined the 25 minute queue (which was quite a bit shorter than the other major coasters and nearby rapids at the time) and started moving along relatively quickly. Then, in a similar vain to what happened on Niagara at Bellewaerde, a staff member comes from the adjacent station building, calling for any 2s or 4s. We happened to be in the right place at the right time yet again, and managed to skip about 10-15 minutes of the queue and got on the next ride!
To put it simply, I wasn't a fan of the ride. It was quite uncomfortable, especially on the lower back, for the majority of the ride, which made it hard to enjoy. The thing is though, I think for a coaster of this size, the layout is actually alright, and if it was a bit more comfortable, I genuinely think I'd enjoy it a lot more. A shame really. Also, one other thing, a red and black colour scheme does not suit a ride called Vampire...


After a spot of lunch, we made our way over to the wild west themed area, and did another coaster - Calamity Mine. It's a Vekoma mine train, with two lift hills side-by-side (which kind of almost race each other to the top if the batching is right, though there's little duelling between trains). The layout and surroundings are quite fun; indeed, it's probably the park's most fun ride to look at in my opinion. The ride experience was alright, but, for some reason, I just didn't get that smile on my face that everyone else in the group got. It's especially odd as I normally love these sorts of family coasters. Ah well.




Wild West areas need more Calamity Jane references.
Next up was the small matter of Dalton Terror - a 240ft drop tower (making this the tallest ride I've done!). It was good fun; it's nice to finally experience a drop tower with a long drop time. In terms of drop towers, I still prefer Detonator for the force of it, but this is still a great ride experience, and I wouldn't be surprised if this is one of the better ones for mixing imposing-ness, whilst not having a drop which feels 'too long'.

We moved onto the adjacent, but hidden away, 3D walkthrough, appropriately named Walibi's Secret. It's basically like Hocus Pocus Hall meets Freakshow 3D, in that it's a fun walkthrough which makes use of paint which becomes 3D with 3D glasses. Except it's got a more fun feel than HPH. It had some nice little scenes (my favourite being a ramp which looked like a ladder), and it really is a neat little secret on park. Definitely something wroth trying out if you ever visit!

It even featured some optical illusions!
After a long ride on Gold River Adventure, the park's boat ride around the lake, we then headed over to Psyké Underground, an indoor Schwarzkopf shuttle loop coaster. The queue for it is really weird, since you enter the building, go underneath the station, then go back outside, only to queue in a partially-enclosed area, before entering the building again. It was nice on a warm day to be able to queue outside but in the shade, but it just felt so random and odd!
I sort of liked the ride itself though. It's got a bit of a club/party atmosphere, in a similar fashion to X, and whilst the ride is starting, the staff get everyone the train to clap along to the music, which is a great touch. Jack and I were in the front row for it - the launch was fun and the vertical loop was a bit disorientating with the lights. But it just felt like it needed more. The ride itself feels very short (even shorter than you expect, even when you watch it whilst in the station), so I felt like it could do with more lights, louder music, maybe another effect or two, just to further distract you from the shortness of the ride. It's a fun little ride, but it just needs MORE.


On our Gold River Adventure, we encountered baby ducks and fountains.



Some of the odd-but-neat posters in the Psyké Underground queue line.
With time pressing on, we were a bit unfortunate in that biggest rides that we had left to do were still quite busy. We moved onto Radju River, the park's awesome-looking rapids. They were very rapidy, of a decent length and in general very fun. The operations on it were a bit weird, as they kept stopping and starting the station turntable, which was causing stacking of the boats a lot. Not sure if this is normal or not of course, but it would explain the long queue either way..
Now it was gone half 5 (where did all that time go?!), and the queue lines closed at 6. There were two casters left to do - Werewolf, the park's woodie, and Cobra, another Vekoma Boomerang. Cobra was closer and was saying a 25 minute queue, and the operations looked slower than at Bellewaerde. Not wanting to run the risk of missing out on the woodie for the sake of a another Boomerang, Jack and I headed over there, whilst Adam and Peaj risked it all...

Not today thanks.
So, we headed our way over to Loup-Garou / Weerwolf and joined the ugly cattlepen queue. Given that the only woodie I'd done so far was Antelope at Gulliver's Warrington, I was really looking forward to this, and it was a fitting way to try and end the day. We missed out on back row, as one train's back row was out of order, and there were loads of people waiting for it, but still got quite near the back. One thing I loved about the ride was how the bag drop point in the station had lids that would 'mysteriously' open and close - it was a neat little effect that I really appreciated.
Now I think with this being my first big woodie, I perhaps over-rated it, but I really enjoyed it! Super comfortable seats, a decent layout with good length, and not too 'rough around the edges' meant it was just a great ride that I really enjoyed. Even looking back now, I just remember feeling a huge smile beam across my face.



We noticed that Adam and Peaj had just about made it into the queue - last ones in in fact - so they ended up getting one up on us. We waited around for them, and even lurked around the exit to see if they would let us on if there was space; no such luck there though. After they had their ride, we begun to head to the exit, when we realised that the chairswing, Wave Swinger, was still operating and still letting people join the queue. We decided to go for a quick spin for the sake of it, and it was a nice way to end the day.
After a bit of shopping in the Wab Shop, we left and set ourselves on course for, Cologne Germany. A couple of hours later, and we arrived at our hostel. Much like with our hotel in France on Day 1, we were greeted by a locked door and no response when we knocked and rang the door bell. With no telephone number to call, we seemed to be quite stuck. A little while later, one of the other people staying eventually came out for a cigarette and let us in. We knocked around the rooms and eventually found one unlocked with 4 made beds, so decided it was our's. We found another guest who was able to give us a telephone number for the owners, who told us that they thought we weren't coming because we didn't arrive in the check in time (even though online, check-in was until 11pm, and we arrived before 10). In the end, we were told the room we had found was indeed our room and we continued the night we no problems.
We wandered around the local area, and I grabbed a currywurst and chips for dinner - was very nice. We found a local supermarket and stocked up on some drinks (500ml bottles for 99cents; bargain!) and some snacks, before heading back to our hostel. It had been another long day with a lot of time spent in the car, but we knew a longer day was coming, with Phantasialand open 11 hours tomorrow, it was time for some sleep.
Final Walibi Thoughts: For a park that I was a bit meh about visiting, I was pleasantly surprised overall. It had some decent rides which were fun and there were some nice bits of theming scattered about. The park atmosphere was a bit lacking on the whole; something just felt a bit missing from the place. What that 'something' is though, I can't quite put my finger on!

Causing a bit of a gap to the long speculated trip reports of certain members visiting several new major parks [surprisingly not Benin in this case], you may be wondering what the Creek will be able to provide to contend with this. If you were hoping for reports of new visited parks and the like, you may leave feeling rather disappointed [there are big plans in the works for the near'ish future though], however what I will offer instead will be in the shape and form of unique and different theme park activity.

Having been a big fan/enthusiast of parks and coasters for a long time, there is something I had always wanted to do at a park for a long time in my life; that was walking up to the top of roller coaster lift hill. Following the foreseeable cancellation of my Towers lift hill walk [due to the unfortunate accident of a certain ride], I instantly booked myself a coaster climb on one the coasters at Thorpe [whether it's a good idea to this the day after a heavy night clubbing and drinking is another story however]

Judging from the [poorly quality] picture above you can tell right away which ride I went for; Colossus
After having experienced my chosen ride at the end of the day before closing, I waited patiently outside the ride's exit [as instructed by the details on the email I'd received when I booked it], where I was soon approached by a member of Thorpe's stuff and when clarifying my name, I knew my experience was about to begin.

Being directed in to the Swarm's control booth with others taking the walk [a dad and his son], we were given an informative talk about the ride's generally statistics from basic things such as opening in 2012, being built by Bolliger & Mabillard and costing 20 million to more complex and interesting facts.
When it comes to dispatching the ride, the operator in the control booth must press both green buttons with his hands in-addion to the platform staff pressing the other four buttons. If one of these buttons isn't pressed the ride will not dispatch. Interestingly, there are four positions staff can be allocated to on this ride, control operator, baggage room, front and back of station, where are total number of seven staff are required on two trains operation and six on one train operation.
The ride's console is a lot smaller and advanced from the park's older consoles [inferno's apparently strikes similarities but is noticeably bigger]. Not only can individual rows of restraints be released individually [no need for the recheck all bars here] but the computer system can also calculate how many trains have been running on the system and give a general count of throughput. Speaking on throughputs, one train operation on Swarm allows for about 600 people per hour [pph] whilst two trains allows up to 1200 PPH.
As you can witness from the photo [and the giveaway on the booth] the ride was on just one train at the end of the day, however this was to ensure final checks on the ride's others train which would be checked up through the evening/night and then run on the circuit the next day whilst the existing train would then receive it's inspection. Interestingly whilst the work shop is located on the right to the station building, there is a giant cold fridge in there too [ I forget why though].
Other interesting things the console allows [pictured above] is to open/close gates, stop and start the ride and also stop and start on the lift hill too. The ride was naturally locked down when we were there which only the engineering crew would be able to open to stop any possibility of the ride operating whilst we were there. One of the other proceedures of loading aside from the buttons and thumbs up is all seats must be closed and locked for dispatched regardelss of them being with or without riders.

The second part of the console, this allows the operator to speak to through the tannoy systems, and press automated announcments such as weather closing and reopening. There's naturally a phone too for the operator to contact platform staff.

like all ride's alike, the ride uses CCTV throughout the surrounding area which is to used to ensure the ride is working correctly and that no one has trespassed in the surrounding area [which would result in an e-stop].

Before doing the actual part of the lift walk, everyone was instructed to put on safety harness vests, which involved putting the main part on your chest whilst adjusting and tightening the giant clip and then getting your legs through the holes then adjusting them. This was finalised by the ball hold which would connect to the coaster wire itself.

Then it was time for the walk itself to begin. This gaint bit of machinery operates the lift hill of the ride.
The harness I was wearing was connected to the chainwire at the side, which involved in the positioning of the clip. Every so often, you would need to push the clip through a check point area so to ensure maximum safety. If you folded the clip in, then it would stick you to position. The design of this safety figure has been designed to prevent slip backs, so if you accidentally trip up on the way up or down, the clip safely locks you in place preventing any major accidents from happening.

One of things talked about was the actual meaning of the ride's project name LC12. I naturally put it down as Lez Cougan, however the actual meaning of the acronym was infact Lost Cause. Mentions of other project names such as Project Odyssey [Colossus] and Project Dylan [saw] were also mentioned briefly there too.
And many steps later, we finally reached the top. It was a very nice day so I was able to get some pretty good views of the park and surrounding area whilst I was up there [including Heathrow].


Who Thought Thorpe was so beautiful


I learn't many interesting new facts on my climb which was great to hear whilst taking in the stunning views below. These included,
1/ Stealth & Rita were originally supposed to be one big coaster however due to some difficulties in planning it, this was split in half. So Thorpe got one half [the better half IMO] whilst Towers got Rita.
2/ The reason why Nemesis Inferno was themed like a volcano was because of the fire that took place on the site the ride replaced [Tropical Travels].
3/ If Thorpe were to build something massive on the empty island next to Swarm, they would need to remove something equivalent in size [my tour guide described the park's landscape as being like a Lilo.

I naturally had to ask/enquire about WC16 [Thorpe's new dark ride] during the climb. However unsurprisingly he wasn't able to provide much information except that it would be the first kind of ride to ever exist in the world and that it would be a top class ride. Even facts down to when it would open [spring or summer] could not be provided.
He did mention there would be more interesting in vestments on the way within the park and that Thorpe's target was now all age groups.


When it came to Fright Nights, he said that this years one would be bigger and better, however couldn't confirm completely if there would be any new attractions or face it alone returned [but hinted the former was likely].

On the operational front, the ride cannot operate below 5 degrees or in winds over 35 MPH, there's a wind tracking device at the top of the hill which is sort of in the form of a micro wind turbine.


The main Thorpe hotel is expected to open around 2018/2019. It was mentioned how a spruce up of the entrance would be liked [depecting a very RCT style appearance] and hinted that a redesign in the future would probably happen however the dome would remain for the foreseeable long term due to it's complex structure and helpful functions within the park.


One of the most eager questions I asked I did manage to get an answer for though was the future of the now closed Chief Rangers Caroulsel? When dismantled the ride was stored temporarily in the staff car park for a while, however unfortunately the ride will never be able to return to the park.
This is because it's going to a different park. Which though wasn't said however apparently it isn't close to any major European parks and the country of location is unknown [so tracking of the ride will likely be extremely difficult]. I am happy to confirm though that many prominent items from the old ride have been salvaged including the old ride centrepieces which are apparently now located in the education centre. The other horses on the ride are believed to have been kept to use on the ride's new home.


I asked on what the forseeable future for Mr Monkey might be and he reckons the ride is here to stay as a tribute and lone survivor of the Ranger area that once dominated the park.

When it came to potential rides going, the answer was generally that Thorpe like to keep their rides and that Samurai was closed so that they could give it out the attention it needed to work again as it was still a popular ride at the park.






When it came to Colossus's 'potential' repaint he was unsure on whether it would get fully done and did agree that ride presentations are an important aspect of rides. He did however hint towards the possible return of the railway in the future and the re-theme of Rumba though.

Proof this is real



A pic of me and my guide



I'm a long way up!

After this unique,interesting and insightful experience, I gradually made it down from this giant coaster back to the ground where I thanked my host before grabbing my belongings and making my way.
The Big Question
Was The Walk Worth £50?
Just about,
in this experience, not only do you get to go up and down your coaster of choice, but you are presented with stunning and amazing views of the surrounding area not just in the park but on for many miles throughout the landscape. You also learn a lot of new facts and information on different things in the park from the operational and management side to how the park works as a whole. Seeing the control cabin of one of my favourite coasters was another interesting sight and I enjoyed my time doing this experience where all the VIP team were extremely friendly and helpful and this was no rush or pushing ahead on the experience at any time.
I will probably do another lift walk here at somepoint in the future [not sure when though] on Colossus to see how it compares and look how different the ride works from an operational view, B&M were described as the creme de la creme of coasters when I was there. If you're in to different theme park experiences and wish to experience a lift hill walk, I would definitely recommend experiencing one on The Swarm!

Day 2 of the trip got off to a slightly bad start, with no where around our French hotel seemingly being open for us to buy breakfast (despite the internet and shop signs saying they would be open..). After much wandering around, we found a nice little bakery where I couldn't resist getting anything other than a croissant. After food was sorted, and a nice 30 minute car journey was had, we arrived at our second park , Bellewaerde.
Now, before I start, I should probably confess that I hadn't really heard of Bellewaerde at all until Adam suggested it be part of the trip in its early planning stages. I remember hearing about their signature coaster, Huracan, being built a couple of years ago (indeed, if you dig round on the forums, you'll probably find it being briefly because of its epic opening ceremony), but I didn't exactly think anything of it other than "Oh, that's an obscure park I've never heard of and probably won't visit any time soon". Fast-forward to now and I'm here, with said coaster right before my eyes.
We were directed to park by the Mexico entrance rather than the main entrance, which straight away took us to the likes of Huracan and some of the other big rides on park. Huracan opened at half 10, so we decided to wait around a bit, and Jack and Peaj went on El Toro, the park's breakdance to pass the time...

They weren't overly impressed with it.
We joined the queue for Huracan, which was stated to be about 30 minutes. Given this was the park's headline ride, we decided to brave it expecting it to be longer later in the day. The entire queue is indoors and very nice, though slightly boring to wait in admittedly. This is saved by the epic station area, which is nicely themed, very atmospheric and has awesome lighting and sound effects.
The coaster starts off with a dark ride section, taking you pass a waterfall and many large temple-like statues. I think the ride is meant to have on board audio, but unfortunately it wasn't working for us. Whilst the theming here was something special, the lack of audio obviously meant something felt like it was missing. The lift hill then takes you outside briefly, giving a lovely view of part of the park, and the warehouse the ride is held in, before dropping you back inside. There's some cool light effects in there, and the layout is fun, but again, without any audio, it feels like a lot is missing from the attraction. The ride ended and left me saying "Is that it?". As an overall attraction, it's probably great when everything is working, but it just didn't do enough for me on the day. A real shame.

Entrance / outdoor section

Atmospheric station is atmospheric.
We then moved over the El Volador, a Topple Tower. Infamous rides really, and whilst I have wanted to try one out for ages, I was a bit unsure on whether the ride would be any good. The ride experience is weird, as it's not dull, not exciting, but it just happens. Very unremarkable in my opinion. I guess for me they're a lot like top spins in that they're fun rides to watch, but that's about it.


It was time to move onto another coaster, with Boomerang just around the corner. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it's a Vekoma Boomerang. It's the first one I've done, and I wasn't exactly looking forward to it after hearing many bad reviews. Alas, even if the long-ish queue gave me plenty of time to hear the rattlyness of the ride, I went in with an open mind. Admittedly, I didn't find it as rough as I was expecting, but it wasn't a comfortable ride. Coupled in with the fact that it's an intense ride mean I didn't enjoy that much.


To complete of Mexico, we watched a French showing of the park's new 4D film, Le Petite Prince (we could also have watched it in Dutch if we wanted, but chose against it. It's got a fair few special effects, and the fact we were told to keep our bags away from the seats should have been an indication of what to expect from the film. The seats move in all directions an awful, awful lot - the effect is a lot more over-used than any of Angry Birds' effects, for some perspective. The film itself was alright though.
After about 2 hours in one area of the park, we finally moved along to the Far West to do River Splash, the park's log flume. It was a very warm day once again, so I was hoping for a reasonable splashing. Unfortunately, despite having a nice bit of theming and style to the ride, it was quite short, relatively dry and all in all, just a bit meh.

Final drop

Adam insisted I take a photo of the bin, because "no one would believe they have themed bins here if we didn't take a photo".
After a spot of lunch and making priorities of what we should get done, we headed over to Jungle Mission. Bellewaerde is a theme park and zoo integrated into one another, and Jungle Mission is one of those rides that mixes theme park and zoo perfectly (sort of like what Zufari tries to do at Chessington). It's a boat ride that lets you see multiple animals exhibits, but also has a variety of special effects that make it feel like a fun boat ride. It was my favourite attraction of the day probably, with the effects being great, the theming being great, and decent views of the animals too.

The station area had loads of these cobwebs on the ceiling - I'm still not sure if they're theming or real...





Next up was Houdini, a Vekoma Madhouse. The pre-show was interesting with lots of good bits of theming, and I think we were able to be able to pick up the general gist of the story. The actual ride section was alright, but not to the standard of Hex, unsurprisingly. Still, a fun ride in its own right. This was followed by the Bengal Express - a train ride that takes you through lion and tiger enclosures. Again, another fun ride, but the heat meant that the (obviously enclosed) train carriages were quiet warm, and the animals themselves were more lounging around staying cool.


With time ticking on, we went to the Canada area of the park, with a Shoot-the-Chute style ride, Niagara, on the cards. Now, I'm not someone who likes get drenched on water rides unless I'm in the right mood (for context, I haven't done Tidal Wave since 2009 or 2010, despite many opportunities to). So I gave this one a miss, but did queue with the group. Somehow we were lucky and skipped a good 60 minutes of the 80 minute queue when a staff member from the station shouted for a group to come forward to fill up a row (why they got a group from near the end of queue instead of the front I have no clue, but I guess we weren't going to complain...). After seeing everyone after the ride, they didn't look that wet and I kind of wished I done the ride now, but ah well...

Looking pleasantly wet-ish.
A go on Screaming Eagle, a Shot n Drop tower, followed. Once again, it's a type of ride I'd never done before, but had wanted to try. It was okay, but I think I prefer ordinary drop towers to be honest - they provide a better, and more comfortable, experience really.
With 5pm approaching, we headed over the Gold Rush Stunt and Dive Show, new for this year. It was really good fun, with great special effects, a decent run time (25 minutes or so) and some good stunts of course. Being a stunt show meant it was very easy to follow as well, an added bonus for a park which is trying to cater for 2 different languages. It bought back some memories of Thorpe's stunt and dive show too; forgot how much I missed it!


With the show over and the 6pm close looming, there was only really time for one more ride, and we opted to do Bengal Rapid River, unsurprisingly a rapids ride. It was a really fun ride, with it being quite 'rapidsy', a good level of wetness, with some nice bits of theming and scenery scattered around the course. Also slightly strange to see a rapids ride have its station on a slope (though, as we'd find out during the trip, not exactly uncommon!).

First time I'd seen a rapids ride with the 'wedge seat' boat design too!
Final Thoughts: Bellewaerde is an odd park in some ways. It's a mixed bag between having some quality attractions (Jungle Mission, Bengal Rapids), but then some attractions which feel like they have missed opportunities (Huracan, River Splash). Maybe on a different, slightly quieter, day, I'd feel different about the park. But even then, I still feel like the park needs a little bit more to feel complete. It's a park I'm not exactly desperate to go back to any time soon, but a park I'm glad I've done. One final thing I want to mention is how friendly and generally great the staff were - also an added bonus that many spoke English, which was much appreciated after some of my failed attempts at speaking French!
We then set off to head to Brussels, which was meant to be a relatively nice journey. Unfortunately, roadworks on the motorway had other plans. A journey which should have taken us just over an hour ended up taking us 2 and a half hours, thanks to single file traffic and an accident. Joyous. Fortunately, when we arrived at the Meininger hotel in Brussels, we were greeted by great staff, a huge room and a Hard Rock Cafe a very short walk away! Would highly recommend this hotel for anyone planning to go to Brussels. There was also a fabulous atmosphere in the city centre with many celebrating the closure of roads happening in the area for an 8 month trial period (to help the atmosphere around that area or something; not too sure on the actual reason).

A beautiful panoramic shot of the group in Brussels

So, as some on here might be aware, myself, scarycoasterboy (Adam), J.S217 (Jack) and Peaj did a bit of a European road trip at the end of last month / beginning of this month. 8 days, 7 parks, 3 countries - it was a big'un. Parks we visited were...
Plopsaland de Panne (27th June)
Bellewaerde (28th)
Walibi Belgium (29th)
Phantasialand (30th)
Toverland (1st July)
Efteling (1st-3rd)
Bobbejaanland (4th)
As we were visiting Belgium, Germany and Holland, we squished the three countries together to get the working title of 'BelGerAnd' for the name of the trip. Unfortunately, that terrible attempt just sort of stuck (much like Stealth's project name ey?). So that explains that.
(PS: Any feedback on the style of this would be great. I do plan on writing up reports from all the parks, so would be nice to do it in a way that people would want to read it!)
Anyway, enough set up, let's get down to TR-ing...
An early start beckoned us - leaving to get the 5:15 ferry from Dover. Naturally, this meant we arrived at Plopsaland - a realtively short drive from Calais - ridiculously before the 10am opening...

The entrance area looks very nice.
We wandered around the local area to pass the time, and about a 5 minute walk away, we found a Belgian War Memorial. It was somewhat surprising to realise that a theme park was so close to a place like. We had a wander around and it really hits home...

With our respects paid, we ventured off to the world of Plopsa. First up was the coaster I was most looking forward to off the day, Anubis.
It's the first launched Gerstlauer I've done, and indeed the first rolling launch I've done. I was looking forward to it, after hearing many good reviews. After a near walk-on through the nicely themed queue, we were on. Simply put, the ride is fab - the launch is great fun, and then the ride that follows mixes pops of airtime, inversions and bits of force nicely together. I found going up the initial hill quite intense too. The ride flows really well and it's very smooth too. It's a little on the short side and lacks any substantial outdoor theming, but at the same time, it doesn't leave you feeling short changed. All in all, a great ride that is really enjoyable.

A somewhat understated entrance.


Couple of ride shots.
We then moved over to Rollerskater, one of the park's family coasters. This immediately caught my eye for one reason - the random theming. From a giant washing machine, bird in a cage to a turtle on a plate, the ride seemed a bit wacky. The coaster itself is fun, but the random bits of theming just make it a right laugh.

Lift hill

The infamous washing machine

Station building
We then ticked off another cred, by doing their powered coaster, De Draak. It's got an extravagantly themed queue line, but it also has a long layout that interacts nicely with the surroundings. Picks up some decent speed and it's nice that it goes round twice too.

De Station.
With temperatures soaring, we decided to cool down on De Boomstammetjes, the park's log flume. It was okay, had a nice double drop finale, but didn't get you wet enough really. By now we had realised something a bit odd - the park itself felt very very busy, but the queues themselves didn't really reflect that. Not sure if that's the norm for Plopsaland given their target market or not, but we weren't really going to complain, as it gave a nice atmosphere to the park, but meant we could try out all that the park had to offer.
With this in mind, we did a few of the filler rides, including Waterfietsen; some pedal swan boats. Was a very nice tour round the lake, though have to admit my legs were aching after a while! Two filler rides that we didn't get done during this little period, however, were their Teacups, which is still being given its awesome-looking retheme, and Rox-Flyer, their Star Flyer. Ah well.

Two rides of spite.
With some flat rides done and lunch out of the way, we moved over to Supersplash, the 'water coaster' which anyone would have a hard time calling a 'coaster'. It was probably our longest queue for the day, at about 20-25 minutes - quite nice that it was indoors too! Following an interesting lift sequence, the ride does a drop underneath a bridge, before coming back up and then giving a nice-looking splash and then meandering back to the station. The lift sequence is nice, but lacking anything substantial really. The drop I found a bit rough in all honesty, but the splash was nice - not wet of course, but was refreshing. I'm a bit unsure on it as an attraction - it takes ideas from a couple of different rides, but doesn't really do anything with them. A bit of a shame.


A shame I didn't get a shot with a boat in really.
We then planned to tick off the two remaining creds on park - Vleermius, the random suspended coaster, and Viktor's Race, the park's kiddie coaster. Unfortunately, it became apparent that Vleermius would spite us - it was closed with no obvious work being done to it. Shame, as it's something I did want to try out, but I'm sure I'll get to try something like it in the future. Viktor's Race, however, was open. Nothing really to say about it, merely one done for the coaster count.

Neither ride was very photo-worthy for me, it would seem.
More wondering round the park was done afterwards, and getting in some rerides along the way. We were planning on heading over the to Wickieland to try out the Disk-o and splash battle over their, but noticed the Disk-o was closed due to it stalling, so we decided to leave that area till later. Instead, we worked our way over to the indoor area Maya Land, near the front of the park.
It's a great area for kids with some fabulous looking rides. The one that caught my attention the most though was De Waterlelies, a Zamperla Demolition Derby. After not getting on the one at Drayton for the past two years, this simply had to be done. Certainly a fun little ride, though it does sort of feel like it drags on a bit towards the end. We also did the slide in Maya Land before leaving to explore the rest of the park once again.

Spinning waterlilies <3
After a couple more rides on Anubis, we then headed over to Het Bos van Plop, an indoor boat ride. I really enjoyed it to be honest, the theming was lovely, the music was catchy and it was just a nice way to relax. Such a simple ride executed so well. We then did the train ride around the park before heading over to Wickieland again...

The Disk-o was still closed, but the car had been bought back to the station-area at least. Instead, we decided to the splash battle - Wickie The Battle. It was very nicely themed, a good length and got you to a good level of wet. Great water ride all in all!

With park close nearing, we dashed over to Supersplash for one more ride (majority vote over-ruled me unfortunately!). We then stayed in the park for a bit longer, looking around the entrance and such, before hitting the road. An hour-or-so drive later, we arrived at our French hotel, and after realising the hotel owners were out for the night and eventually being given our keys by other guests, we were finally in. A quick McDonald's and some French TV bought an end to our first - and fortunately longest - day!
Final Thoughts: I really enjoyed Plopsaland. It's a fab little park, with some nice little gems and great theming. The addition of a woodie next year is definitely music to my ears - one more family thrill coaster would complete the park's line up I think. It's certainly a park I want to go back to soon, and the proximity to me is a bonus!

So, as some on here might be aware, myself, scarycoasterboy (Adam), J.S217 (Jack) and Peaj did a bit of a European road trip at the end of last month / beginning of this month. 8 days, 7 parks, 3 countries - it was a big'un. Parks we visited were...
Plopsaland de Panne (27th June)
Bellewaerde (28th)
Walibi Belgium (29th)
Phantasialand (30th)
Toverland (1st July)
Efteling (1st-3rd)
Bobbejaanland (4th)
As we were visiting Belgium, Germany and Holland, we squished the three countries together to get the working title of 'BelGerAnd' for the name of the trip. Unfortunately, that terrible attempt just sort of stuck (much like Stealth's project name ey?). So that explains that.
(PS: Any feedback on the style of this would be great. I do plan on writing up reports from all the parks, so would be nice to do it in a way that people would want to read it!)
Anyway, enough set up, let's get down to TR-ing...
An early start beckoned us - leaving to get the 5:15 ferry from Dover. Naturally, this meant we arrived at Plopsaland - a realtively short drive from Calais - ridiculously before the 10am opening...

The entrance area looks very nice.
We wandered around the local area to pass the time, and about a 5 minute walk away, we found a Belgian War Memorial. It was somewhat surprising to realise that a theme park was so close to a place like. We had a wander around and it really hits home...

With our respects paid, we ventured off to the world of Plopsa. First up was the coaster I was most looking forward to off the day, Anubis.
It's the first launched Gerstlauer I've done, and indeed the first rolling launch I've done. I was looking forward to it, after hearing many good reviews. After a near walk-on through the nicely themed queue, we were on. Simply put, the ride is fab - the launch is great fun, and then the ride that follows mixes pops of airtime, inversions and bits of force nicely together. I found going up the initial hill quite intense too. The ride flows really well and it's very smooth too. It's a little on the short side and lacks any substantial outdoor theming, but at the same time, it doesn't leave you feeling short changed. All in all, a great ride that is really enjoyable.

A somewhat understated entrance.


Couple of ride shots.
We then moved over to Rollerskater, one of the park's family coasters. This immediately caught my eye for one reason - the random theming. From a giant washing machine, bird in a cage to a turtle on a plate, the ride seemed a bit wacky. The coaster itself is fun, but the random bits of theming just make it a right laugh.

Lift hill

The infamous washing machine

Station building
We then ticked off another cred, by doing their powered coaster, De Draak. It's got an extravagantly themed queue line, but it also has a long layout that interacts nicely with the surroundings. Picks up some decent speed and it's nice that it goes round twice too.

De Station.
With temperatures soaring, we decided to cool down on De Boomstammetjes, the park's log flume. It was okay, had a nice double drop finale, but didn't get you wet enough really. By now we had realised something a bit odd - the park itself felt very very busy, but the queues themselves didn't really reflect that. Not sure if that's the norm for Plopsaland given their target market or not, but we weren't really going to complain, as it gave a nice atmosphere to the park, but meant we could try out all that the park had to offer.
With this in mind, we did a few of the filler rides, including Waterfietsen; some pedal swan boats. Was a very nice tour round the lake, though have to admit my legs were aching after a while! Two filler rides that we didn't get done during this little period, however, were their Teacups, which is still being given its awesome-looking retheme, and Rox-Flyer, their Star Flyer. Ah well.

Two rides of spite.
With some flat rides done and lunch out of the way, we moved over to Supersplash, the 'water coaster' which anyone would have a hard time calling a 'coaster'. It was probably our longest queue for the day, at about 20-25 minutes - quite nice that it was indoors too! Following an interesting lift sequence, the ride does a drop underneath a bridge, before coming back up and then giving a nice-looking splash and then meandering back to the station. The lift sequence is nice, but lacking anything substantial really. The drop I found a bit rough in all honesty, but the splash was nice - not wet of course, but was refreshing. I'm a bit unsure on it as an attraction - it takes ideas from a couple of different rides, but doesn't really do anything with them. A bit of a shame.


A shame I didn't get a shot with a boat in really.
We then planned to tick off the two remaining creds on park - Vleermius, the random suspended coaster, and Viktor's Race, the park's kiddie coaster. Unfortunately, it became apparent that Vleermius would spite us - it was closed with no obvious work being done to it. Shame, as it's something I did want to try out, but I'm sure I'll get to try something like it in the future. Viktor's Race, however, was open. Nothing really to say about it, merely one done for the coaster count.

Neither ride was very photo-worthy for me, it would seem.
More wondering round the park was done afterwards, and getting in some rerides along the way. We were planning on heading over the to Wickieland to try out the Disk-o and splash battle over their, but noticed the Disk-o was closed due to it stalling, so we decided to leave that area till later. Instead, we worked our way over to the indoor area Maya Land, near the front of the park.
It's a great area for kids with some fabulous looking rides. The one that caught my attention the most though was De Waterlelies, a Zamperla Demolition Derby. After not getting on the one at Drayton for the past two years, this simply had to be done. Certainly a fun little ride, though it does sort of feel like it drags on a bit towards the end. We also did the slide in Maya Land before leaving to explore the rest of the park once again.

Spinning waterlilies <3
After a couple more rides on Anubis, we then headed over to Het Bos van Plop, an indoor boat ride. I really enjoyed it to be honest, the theming was lovely, the music was catchy and it was just a nice way to relax. Such a simple ride executed so well. We then did the train ride around the park before heading over to Wickieland again...

The Disk-o was still closed, but the car had been bought back to the station-area at least. Instead, we decided to the splash battle - Wickie The Battle. It was very nicely themed, a good length and got you to a good level of wet. Great water ride all in all!

With park close nearing, we dashed over to Supersplash for one more ride (majority vote over-ruled me unfortunately!). We then stayed in the park for a bit longer, looking around the entrance and such, before hitting the road. An hour-or-so drive later, we arrived at our French hotel, and after realising the hotel owners were out for the night and eventually being given our keys by other guests, we were finally in. A quick McDonald's and some French TV bought an end to our first - and fortunately longest - day!
Final Thoughts: I really enjoyed Plopsaland. It's a fab little park, with some nice little gems and great theming. The addition of a woodie next year is definitely music to my ears - one more family thrill coaster would complete the park's line up I think. It's certainly a park I want to go back to soon, and the proximity to me is a bonus!

So, as some on here might be aware, myself, scarycoasterboy (Adam), J.S217 (Jack) and Peaj did a bit of a European road trip at the end of last month / beginning of this month. 8 days, 7 parks, 3 countries - it was a big'un. Parks we visited were...
Plopsaland de Panne (27th June)
Bellewaerde (28th)
Walibi Belgium (29th)
Phantasialand (30th)
Toverland (1st July)
Efteling (1st-3rd)
Bobbejaanland (4th)
As we were visiting Belgium, Germany and Holland, we squished the three countries together to get the working title of 'BelGerAnd' for the name of the trip. Unfortunately, that terrible attempt just sort of stuck (much like Stealth's project name ey?). So that explains that.
(PS: Any feedback on the style of this would be great. I do plan on writing up reports from all the parks, so would be nice to do it in a way that people would want to read it!)
Anyway, enough set up, let's get down to TR-ing...
An early start beckoned us - leaving to get the 5:15 ferry from Dover. Naturally, this meant we arrived at Plopsaland - a realtively short drive from Calais - ridiculously before the 10am opening...

The entrance area looks very nice.
We wandered around the local area to pass the time, and about a 5 minute walk away, we found a Belgian War Memorial. It was somewhat surprising to realise that a theme park was so close to a place like. We had a wander around and it really hits home...

With our respects paid, we ventured off to the world of Plopsa. First up was the coaster I was most looking forward to off the day, Anubis.
It's the first launched Gerstlauer I've done, and indeed the first rolling launch I've done. I was looking forward to it, after hearing many good reviews. After a near walk-on through the nicely themed queue, we were on. Simply put, the ride is fab - the launch is great fun, and then the ride that follows mixes pops of airtime, inversions and bits of force nicely together. I found going up the initial hill quite intense too. The ride flows really well and it's very smooth too. It's a little on the short side and lacks any substantial outdoor theming, but at the same time, it doesn't leave you feeling short changed. All in all, a great ride that is really enjoyable.

A somewhat understated entrance.


Couple of ride shots.
We then moved over to Rollerskater, one of the park's family coasters. This immediately caught my eye for one reason - the random theming. From a giant washing machine, bird in a cage to a turtle on a plate, the ride seemed a bit wacky. The coaster itself is fun, but the random bits of theming just make it a right laugh.

Lift hill

The infamous washing machine

Station building
We then ticked off another cred, by doing their powered coaster, De Draak. It's got an extravagantly themed queue line, but it also has a long layout that interacts nicely with the surroundings. Picks up some decent speed and it's nice that it goes round twice too.

De Station.
With temperatures soaring, we decided to cool down on De Boomstammetjes, the park's log flume. It was okay, had a nice double drop finale, but didn't get you wet enough really. By now we had realised something a bit odd - the park itself felt very very busy, but the queues themselves didn't really reflect that. Not sure if that's the norm for Plopsaland given their target market or not, but we weren't really going to complain, as it gave a nice atmosphere to the park, but meant we could try out all that the park had to offer.
With this in mind, we did a few of the filler rides, including Waterfietsen; some pedal swan boats. Was a very nice tour round the lake, though have to admit my legs were aching after a while! Two filler rides that we didn't get done during this little period, however, were their Teacups, which is still being given its awesome-looking retheme, and Rox-Flyer, their Star Flyer. Ah well.

Two rides of spite.
With some flat rides done and lunch out of the way, we moved over to Supersplash, the 'water coaster' which anyone would have a hard time calling a 'coaster'. It was probably our longest queue for the day, at about 20-25 minutes - quite nice that it was indoors too! Following an interesting lift sequence, the ride does a drop underneath a bridge, before coming back up and then giving a nice-looking splash and then meandering back to the station. The lift sequence is nice, but lacking anything substantial really. The drop I found a bit rough in all honesty, but the splash was nice - not wet of course, but was refreshing. I'm a bit unsure on it as an attraction - it takes ideas from a couple of different rides, but doesn't really do anything with them. A bit of a shame.


A shame I didn't get a shot with a boat in really.
We then planned to tick off the two remaining creds on park - Vleermius, the random suspended coaster, and Viktor's Race, the park's kiddie coaster. Unfortunately, it became apparent that Vleermius would spite us - it was closed with no obvious work being done to it. Shame, as it's something I did want to try out, but I'm sure I'll get to try something like it in the future. Viktor's Race, however, was open. Nothing really to say about it, merely one done for the coaster count.

Neither ride was very photo-worthy for me, it would seem.
More wondering round the park was done afterwards, and getting in some rerides along the way. We were planning on heading over the to Wickieland to try out the Disk-o and splash battle over their, but noticed the Disk-o was closed due to it stalling, so we decided to leave that area till later. Instead, we worked our way over to the indoor area Maya Land, near the front of the park.
It's a great area for kids with some fabulous looking rides. The one that caught my attention the most though was De Waterlelies, a Zamperla Demolition Derby. After not getting on the one at Drayton for the past two years, this simply had to be done. Certainly a fun little ride, though it does sort of feel like it drags on a bit towards the end. We also did the slide in Maya Land before leaving to explore the rest of the park once again.

Spinning waterlilies <3
After a couple more rides on Anubis, we then headed over to Het Bos van Plop, an indoor boat ride. I really enjoyed it to be honest, the theming was lovely, the music was catchy and it was just a nice way to relax. Such a simple ride executed so well. We then did the train ride around the park before heading over to Wickieland again...

The Disk-o was still closed, but the car had been bought back to the station-area at least. Instead, we decided to the splash battle - Wickie The Battle. It was very nicely themed, a good length and got you to a good level of wet. Great water ride all in all!

With park close nearing, we dashed over to Supersplash for one more ride (majority vote over-ruled me unfortunately!). We then stayed in the park for a bit longer, looking around the entrance and such, before hitting the road. An hour-or-so drive later, we arrived at our French hotel, and after realising the hotel owners were out for the night and eventually being given our keys by other guests, we were finally in. A quick McDonald's and some French TV bought an end to our first - and fortunately longest - day!
Final Thoughts: I really enjoyed Plopsaland. It's a fab little park, with some nice little gems and great theming. The addition of a woodie next year is definitely music to my ears - one more family thrill coaster would complete the park's line up I think. It's certainly a park I want to go back to soon, and the proximity to me is a bonus!