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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!

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!

Day 2 – Bellewaerde Park Time for coasters! And with a brand new one it was time to head along to Belle, via several country roads and an awful diversion, we eventually arrived at the destination (N.B. There is an easier route to take to get to the park we discovered on our way back, blergh)… Formerly a safari park, this place certainly shares similarities with both Chessington and Flamingoland, but let’s not set our hopes too low, and go and ride the first coaster of the day (in order to avoid long queues later), Ladybird a Large Zierer Tivoli… Bugger. Well, these coasters are actually quite fun at times; although how it fitted into the Western theme area I have no idea. Though this thing was basically bread and butter to the usual types of this ride, so it’s unremarkable. Next up, Boomerang. It’s like the park WANTS us to hate it, but either way, this is a well themed one so at least it looked nice to ride. After Nicky’s apprehension of her first Boomerang, we were on and were surprised to find it smooth, barring the odd jerk during the backwards section of course, it wasn’t perfect. But comparatively, it was like riding a B&M. Amazing scenes! The final coaster was the brand new Huracan, an indoor Zierer coaster with random outside bit and epic dark ride section. Most reports heard before were of high praise regarding the level of theme this ride has, and this is most certainly true of the queue, station and pre-lift section. It’s pretty damn awesome, if the queue is quite bland and rather boring. Onto the ride itself and with no explanation you’re set off through various rooms with random theming in each, with music booming out of the speaker, pretty cool so far. After the wind room we’re off into the daylight (and random pointless red strobe) up the lift into the pre-darkness section. I do like the way the music fades out at this point and returns upon entry into the building, and speaking of such, the ride section is decent, but completely lacking in anything. I do like the daylight peeking it allowing you glimpses of the track, but there’s just nothing else. Even cheap cut-outs a la Revenge of the Mummy would improve things. Although with a minimum height of 1m, they put their hat on that market and went with it. The brake run laser show is quite cool, but I can only imagine what if they had decided to put in a freefall section on this to finish it instead? Then the turn back into the station to finish instead of stopping and waiting for the train in front to depart? Good family coaster mind, with some decent dark ride element to it, but it had a lot more potential that could have been realised. 7/10 Coasters done, it was time for other things, so we polished up the Aztec area with El Volador, a Topple Tower which ran a lot faster than Djurs’, and El Toro a Huss Breakdance of JOY. After which we broke for lunch. As the weather was awesome (where has Summer gone now?) we elected for the Log Flume, which had a massive ONE drop, and two lift hills… Lol wut? It was rather refreshing though to be fair, but that to me made no sense whatsoever. It was then time to meander around the zoo part, or at least part of it, as it was still reasonably spread out. But regardless we saw Giraffes, Elephants, Zebras and Lemurs for the exotic stuff, whilst goats were the more typical animal nearby. A wild Madhouse, Houdini appeared, which was promptly ruined by loud teenagers. But had an amusing clip which was as good as SMUGHEX. Further into the park we delved and found the potentially unique Bengal Express, which makes the idea of Zufari look turd, why? Because you’re in a train going right through the Lion and Tiger enclosure that’s why! Ok it’s well protected and everything, but still… Was awesome. Next up were the Bengal Rapids, my very first Wedge rapids style ride, where rather than one complete boat they’ve cut it up and had essentially 3/4 (depending on where you go) sections that can and do act separately from each other. This also means that you can be attacked from any direction which balances out the general lack of being able to have too many large drops (which was disproven by Bagatelle). Was quite good fun though really in the end. We dried off with an ice cream before doing the Squirrel Monkey island and then continuing around to the Huss Drop Tower Screaming Eagle, which was a good bit of fun as well. Next up was the Jungle Mission boat ride, after our experiences of such in Denmark, we dreaded to think what would be next, but we found an excessively random ride mixed into some animal enclosures (including Capybara, YAY), worth a go. At that point we felt like we had done as much of the park that we wanted, so we rode Boomerang and Huracan again, before heading to the shop and home. Overall I would say Bellewaerde is a good park with a lot of potential ahead. The theming it has is very well done but is rather sparse overall. They also (in my opinion) need a real stand-out ride to really reach out to a larger audience of people, with a hint of uniqueness. Probably why I think Huracan would have benefitted from the freefall drop but on the other hand it would have meant missing out on that 1m limit. I really liked the park, and whilst the zoo portion of it is tiny these days, they have some excellent viewing areas which make it rather similar to Flamingoland, only without the awfulness of being it. I hope they expand continually in the future because there is a great potential in there.

Day 1 – Bruges An early Friday morning greeted us as my car was packed and we set off for the Channel Tunnel, before long however we had reached Calais and the drive to Bruges through 20 million sets of road-works began. About 2 hours after our arrival in Calais, we had arrived at our hotel, on the outskirts of the ‘Old Town’ of Bruges. A quick note about the hotel, it is pretty fab… Not in the way of being amazing, it’s just extremely nice, with great people running it who are very helpful and have great knowledge of the local area. Plus the lift had no doors and sounded like Tower of Terror <3 We began our adventure in Bruges with food, Croque Monsieurs to be precise, and after that we hit up our first stop, the Chocolate Musuem. For €7 (or 6 if you have a hotel thingy we got given) you get a very small museum that teaches you the history of chocolate through the ages via the usual array of text walls and Playmobil models. It also has a live demonstration where you get to try an extremely fresh piece of gorgeous chocolate. It’s small and can probably be done in 30 minutes, but certainly worth the €6 we paid each. Classic England! Next up we headed to the main square and had our interest piqued by the Historium. This is a weird one, as it gives off a vibe of being like the Dungeons, and indeed, the whole theming is of a Dungeons standard. However it’s an audio guide following the tale of some young lad trying to help his famous painting master paint something. He falls in love; there are parakeets, yada, yada, yada. It’s a decent attraction though for the tourist crowd, and does vary the way in which you watch the videos. There’s also nudity for those interested. It pops you out on the second floor of the building, allowing for some great views of the market. After a quick drink in the bar (and it’s chandelier of beer), we walked around for a bit. Bruges is a very beautiful place to be quite honest. The building work especially, could easily spend a day walking around taking photos. Eventually we decided to go on a Canal Tour, and although we feared for our safety when a fat American boarded, it was very good. Get a 35 minute tour for the trouble of €12 odd so you definitely get your money’s worth. Go home statue, you are drunk! After a bit more faffing we decided it was time to grab a bite to eat and we enjoyed some Mussels and Salmon (Friday is fish day in Bruges) which were extremely nice. This was followed up by some Waffles, because Belgium. After that we wondered back to the hotel and chilled out. The BEERWALL! As I said, Bruges is a wonderful place, full of history and is beautiful. I would happily go back there and spend more time wondering around, but we managed to do most of the big touristy stuff in an afternoon. Heartily recommend it to everyone who’s in the area to visit for a day.